The CRU graph. Note that it
is calibrated in tenths of a degree Celsius and that even that tiny
amount of warming started long before the late 20th century. The
horizontal line is totally arbitrary, just a visual trick. The whole
graph would be a horizontal line if it were calibrated in whole degrees
-- thus showing ZERO warming

There is an "ascetic instinct" (or perhaps a "survivalist instinct") in
many people that causes them to delight in going without material
comforts. Monasteries and nunneries were once full of such people --
with the Byzantine stylites perhaps the most striking example. Many
Greenies (other than Al Gore and his Hollywood pals) have that instinct
too but in the absence of strong orthodox religious committments they
have to convince themselves that the world NEEDS them to live in an
ascetic way. So their personal emotional needs lead them to press on us
all a delusional belief that the planet needs "saving".

The blogspot version of this blog is HERE. The Blogroll. My Home Page. Email John Ray here. Other mirror sites: Dissecting Leftism. For a list of backups viewable at times when the main blog is "down", see here. (Click "Refresh" on your browser if background colour is missing) See here or here for the archives of this site
****************************************************************************************

31 March, 2015

Harmless pesticide still used in Australia -- ozone "hole" regardless

In their role as sand in the gears of civilization, Greenies
constantly find reasons to ban useful chemicals, making pest and
weed control difficult and raising costs. We need therefore to
look at where a ban is really needed. In this case the reason for
the ban is a laugh. Methyl bromide was banned because it allegedly
harmed the ozone layer.

But even though the ozone layer
"protections" were put in place long ago, the "hole" in the ozone layer
waxes and wanes as it always did. The "protections" have protected
nothing. The ozone "hole" is now properly regarded as just another
failed Greenie scare. Although official meteorological
records of the "hole" are no doubt still available, nobody I know even
bothers to track it anymore.

So the ban on Methyl bromide
should in fact now be lifted completely -- giving farmers and others a
colorless, odorless, nonflammable fumigant to use, where appropriate

About 70 per cent of Australian strawberries are being grown on runners
that have been fumigated with an environmentally damaging pesticide that
has been banned around the world.

Methyl bromide is an odourless and colourless gas which was banned under
the United Nations Montreal Protocol in 1989 because it depletes the
ozone layer.

Australia agreed to phase it out by 2005 but a decade later, nine
strawberry runner growers at Toolangi, in Victoria's Yarra Valley, are
still using nearly 30 tonnes a year.

They produce 100 million strawberry runners annually, which in turn generate about 70 per cent of Australian strawberries.

Each year they apply to the UN for a critical use exemption from the ban, claiming the alternatives are financially crippling.

The co-chair of the UN Methyl Bromide Technical Options committee, Dr Ian Porter, said the situation was frustrating.

"Internationally, we've gotten rid of 85 per cent of methyl bromide, and
it's a great win for mankind — in fact it's the best environmental gain
that's been made," he said.

"[The strawberry runner growers] want to get rid of it, but there's a
responsibility to provide high-health runners for the industry.

"It's frustrating ... but we don't want industries to fall over
economically or technically. We don't want more disease or pests in
Australia."

Environmental Justice Australia said it was concerned the growers were using a loophole to continue their use of methyl bromide.

"I think if people did know more about this issue, they'd be very
concerned that the strawberries they're consuming are contributing to
this significant environmental issue," chief executive Brendan Sydes
said.

"There was a commitment to phase out this chemical by 2005 and yet,
despite that, we're continuing to use it in this industry. It's a real
concern.

"I think it's a real failure of the industry to come up with some
alternative methods of producing strawberry runners, but also of the
government to insist on compliance with this important regulatory
regime."

Prices would increase to $10 a punnet: industry

The strawberry growers said if they were forced to stop using methyl
bromide, the viability of the $400 million strawberry industry would be
"compromised" and 15,000 jobs jeopardised.

The industry estimated their costs could soar by 500 per cent if they
were to switch to soilless growing systems, similar to those used in
parts of Europe.

The runner industry has invested more than $700,000 on research and development to find alternatives to methyl bromide.

That cost would be passed on to consumers, and a punnet of strawberries could end up costing more than $10.

An Alabama atmospheric scientist who has gained a global reputation as a
repudiator of "mainstream climate science" strongly defended his
research record at the University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH), where he
is a distinguished professor and director of the university's Earth
System Science Center.

John Christy, who has been at UAH since 1987, said this week that all of
his research funds are derived from state and federal agencies and that
he has never accepted research money from business or industry groups
that have challenged the scientific findings of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the
National Research Council and other expert bodies.

Nor has he accepted research funding from groups actively engaged in lobbying against U.S. climate change policies, he said.

Moreover, Christy suggested a recently launched congressional
investigation into sources of his and other climate scientists' research
funding is an attempt by Democrats in Washington to squelch dissenting
opinions about the degree of climate warming and the role that
human-generated greenhouse gas emissions have in a shifting climate.

"I've been involved in this issue for 25 years, and I'm past the point
of being intimidated," Christy said in an email responding to the
inquiry led by House Natural Resources ranking member Raúl Grijalva
(D-Ariz.) exploring outside funding to climate researchers at seven U.S.
universities.

"This is simply a way for the Administration to publicly draw attention
to us as scientists not aligned with their views, implying there must be
a scurrilous reason for daring to think the way we do," he added.

Christy said he did not distinguish between Democrats in Congress, where
the investigation is playing out, and members of the Obama
administration who have cast Christy and other scientists with
dissenting views on climate change as being idealogues or beholden to
the fossil fuel industry and other polluters.

"They are one and the same to me," he said.

Not a joiner

Christy's comments follow renewed attention brought to his and six other
high-profile academics' research records, public engagements and other
activities carried out in their capacities as university employees.

Others targeted by the Grijalva investigation are Richard Lindzen of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Robert Balling of Arizona State
University, Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, Steven
Hayward of Pepperdine University, David Legates of the University of
Delaware and Roger Pielke of the University of Colorado.

All seven of the academics have testified before Congress, and several
have participated in events hosted or sponsored by groups seeking to
disprove widely accepted climate change theories or characterize the
phenomenon as a hoax.

Some of those organizations, such as the Heartland Institute and the
Institute for Energy Research, have come under scrutiny from advocacy
groups, climate scientists and elected officials for their lobbying
activities, public statements and financial support for research that
promotes climate change skepticism.

Christy, who is credited with important research using balloons and
satellites to measure changes in the Earth's lower atmosphere, is
well-known to climate skeptic organizations, and his work has been cited
in various documents and reports. He is also a well-known figure in
both Washington, D.C., and Alabama, where he has been the state's
official climatologist since 2000.

In the past, Christy has said he avoids close association, including
attending the meetings of climate skeptic groups, to avoid "guilt by
association."

He has testified before Congress numerous times, most recently in 2013,
and is one of the lead authors of the IPCC's 2001 report in which the
satellite temperatures were included as a high-quality data set for
studying global climate change. He has since become one of the IPCC's
staunchest critics.

Among other things, Christy has said IPCC models suggesting that climate
change is an imminent threat are wrong, and he has argued that efforts
to arrest climate change by sharply curtailing the burning of fossil
fuels will leave the country without its cheapest and most abundant
energy resources.

"Someone has just done a terrific job at marketing an [unproven] idea,"
Christy said of leading climate theories in a June 2014 interview

Before Congress, Christy has often struck a more combative posture.

"It appears the nation has indeed enacted knee-jerk remedies to 'combat
climate change' through regulations on carbon dioxide," he told a House
panel in December 2013. "I warned this committee in 1996 that these
would be 'unproductive and economically damaging.'"

In the same testimony,Christy submitted comments from fellow climate
scientist Curry of Georgia Tech likening the IPCC to an entity that has
stifled scientific inquiry and worked to infect the scientific and
policy communities with false findings, much the way a disease infects
an organism. "We need to put down the IPCC as soon as possible -- not to
protect the patient who seems to be thriving in its own little cocoon,
but for the sake of the rest of us whom it is trying to infect with its
disease," Curry said.

Such comments have brought Christy into the crosshairs of numerous
climate advocacy groups, as well as Democrats like Grijalva, who last
month began digging into sources of financial support for researchers
like Christy and the six others targeted in the investigation.

In a Feb. 24 letter, Grijalva asked UAH administrators to respond to a
series of questions and information requests concerning Christy's work.
Among other things, the congressman asked for all of Christy's testimony
before government agencies, as well as detailed information on any
"external funding" that Christy has received from non-UAH sources,
including "consulting fees, promotional considerations, speaking fees,
honoraria, travel expenses, salary, compensation and other monies."

In an email last week, a spokesman for House Natural Resources Committee
Democrats declined to provide any information on the investigation's
findings to date.

Christy said that the university will be sending a response "based on
all of my funding records." As for the investigators' request for all of
Christy's public testimony, he said his remarks before Congress are
already part of the public record, including information about research
funding sources.

Christy also has the backing of his employer. Ray Garner, chief of staff
to UAH President Robert Altenkirch, said in a statement that Christy
"has always approached his work with the utmost of integrity, and the
quality of his research is nothing short of exemplary."

On March 1, the New York Times published a silly piece titled “Is the
Environment a Moral Cause” by Robb Willer (writing from Palo Alto, CA,
of course) saying conservatives don’t embrace global warming alarmism
and other popular environmental causes because they are more concerned
about “patriotism, respect for authority, sanctity or purity” than
“protecting people and ecosystems from harm and destruction.”

With all due respect to Prof. Willer, this isn’t even close to the
truth. Rupert Wynham’s wonderful March 26 letter to the BBC makes it
abundantly clear that conservatives view global warming as an issue
loaded with moral concerns of a different kind: truth-telling, respect
for others, healthy skepticism toward authority and propaganda, and
willingness to publicly debate those who disagree.

Conservatives – and, opinion polls show, a healthy majority of the
American public – don’t “believe in global warming” because its
advocates utterly lack credibility. They’ve been caught again and again
exaggerating, lying, and even breaking the law to end any civil
discussion of the causes and consequences of climate change. Ordinary
people aren’t fooled by propaganda. They’ve figured it out.

Willer writes, “To win over more of the public, environmentalists must
look beyond the arguments that they themselves have found convincing.”
That’s only partly right. They need to start speaking the truth, stop
believing government agencies and advocacy groups that have been shown
to lie and deceive to achieve power or financial rewards, and start
debating their critics. Nothing else will restore environmentalism to
the status it properly held before it became an appendage of the
left-liberal political movement.

In the nearly two years since John Cook and his colleagues published
their ’97 percent’ paper claiming a scientific consensus on climate
change, the term ’97 percent’ has become something of a mantra for
global warming advocates. President Obama tweeted “Ninety-seven percent
of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous.”
The Guardian runs a regular column headed “Climate Consensus – the 97%”
(regular contributors include co-authors of the original paper).

The paper, published by the Institute of Physic’s IOPScience has been
downloaded over 300,000 times and was voted the best 2013 paper in
Environmental Research Letters. But does the 97 percent claim stack up?

Richard Tol, Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex and the
Professor of the Economics of Climate Change at the Vrije Universiteit,
Amsterdam, says no. He has penned a blog, since published in edited form
by The Australian, thoroughly debunking Cook’s paper, its methodology,
its results, and the way it has been used by climate change advocates.

“Climate research lost its aura of impartiality with the unauthorised
release of the email archives of the Climate Research Unit of the
University of East Anglia,” Tol says. “Its reputation of competence was
shredded by the climate community’s celebration of the flawed works of
Michael Mann. Innocence went with the allegations of sexual harassment
by Rajendra Pachauri and Peter Gleick’s fake memo.

“Cook’s 97% nonsensus paper shows that the climate community still has a
long way to go in weeding out bad research and bad behaviour. If you
want to believe that climate researchers are incompetent, biased and
secretive, Cook’s paper is an excellent case in point.”

Firstly, Tol points out that science doesn’t depend on consensus. A
scientific truth is objective not subjective; that is, it’s true whether
one person adheres to it, or everybody adheres to it.

Secondly, Cook’s paper, titled Quantifying the consensus on
anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature, only claims
that 97 percent of the scientific literature that takes a position on
climate change (most does not) supports man-made global warming
hypotheses. Yet supporters have used it to claim that 97 percent of
scientists support global warming theories; they do not.

That aside, Tol highlights problems specific to Cook’s paper, such as
the fact that, although Cook and his team sampled over 12,000 papers to
reach their conclusion, they “did not check whether their sample is
representative for the scientific literature. It isn’t. Their
conclusions are about the papers they happened to look at, rather than
about the literature. Attempts to replicate their sample failed: A
number of papers that should have been analysed were not, for no
apparent reason.”

That wasn’t the only sampling issue – further analysis has found that
their sample was “padded with irrelevant papers,” such as an article on
TV coverage of climate change which has been used as evidence to support
climate change. “In fact, about three-quarters of the papers counted as
endorsements had nothing to say about the subject matter,” Tol says.

Despite these and other issues, the paper’s editor praised the paper for
its “excellent data quality”. Refusal to hand over data for third party
analysis breaches the publisher’s policy on validation and
reproduction, yet an editorial board member of the journal defended
Cook’s obfuscation as “exemplary scientific conduct”.

The conduct of the Institute of Physics as the publishers of the report,
and the University of Queensland, Cook’s employer, in protecting him
has led the blogger Andrew Montford to accuse them of corruption.

“As an indictment of the corruption of climate science it’s hard to
beat. That the Institute of Physics and the University of Queensland
would stand behind such a blatant piece of politicking and deceit is
almost beyond belief.

“As far as they are concerned when it comes to climate science there is
no study too fraudulent, no conduct too reprehensible, no deception too
blatant,” he said.

Climate science is a world in which wealthy businessmen who make
charitable donations to museums are targeted and ostracized. Yet creeps
who write about urinating on women get a free pass

A passage from former IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri’s 2010 book, "Return to Almora"

Yesterday the left-leaning US website, ThinkProgress.org, ran this
headline: Museums’ Ties To The Koch Brothers Are Not OK, Scientists Say.
The story is written by Joe Romm, a gent who tosses around the phrase
‘anti-science’ so frequently he long ago deprived it of all meaning.

We’re told about an open letter signed by Romm and 53 other “Leading
climate scientists and museum experts.” These people say they’re

deeply concerned by the links between museums of science and natural
history with those who profit from fossil fuels or fund lobby groups
that misrepresent climate science.

The letter singles out a particular person, David Koch. The fact that
this wealthy individual chooses to donate his money and time to the
Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and the American Museum
of Natural History is a scandal, apparently. According to the letter:

We are concerned that the integrity of these institutions is compromised by association with special interests…

When some of the biggest contributors to climate change and funders of
misinformation on climate science sponsor exhibitions in museums of
science and natural history, they undermine public confidence in the
validity of the institutions responsible for transmitting scientific
knowledge.

… the only ethical way forward for our museums is to cut all ties with the fossil fuel industry… [bold added]

Ah, yes. Integrity. Public confidence. Ethics. These are all important
ideas. Too bad activist scientists such as Romm are so selective about
where and when they think such ideas apply. I’ve recently written about a
senior Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) official by the
name of Jean-Pascal van Ypersel who has worked for and taken money from
Greenpeace.

Where is the open letter from 54 leading climate scientists pointing out
that the IPCC’s integrity is irretrievably compromised by such a link?
Why aren’t these same scientists declaring loudly that there’s no
quicker way to undermine public confidence in a purportedly scientific
entity than for its officials to get into bed with agenda-driven, green
multinationals?

And if ordinary, everyday ethics are the issue where, oh where, are the
open letters making it clear there’s no place in climate science for the
sort of egregious sexual harassment of which Rajendra Pachauri, the
former chairman of the IPCC, now stands accused?

Why hasn’t anyone at ThinkProgress even bothered to mention Pachauri’s
resignation? Hello, it happened more than a month ago – on February
24th. Why isn’t anyone on that website talking about the highly
embarrassing fact that Pachauri’s resignation letter tells us he’s on a
religious crusade to save the planet? Surely a statement such as that
shockingly undermines everyone’s confidence in the IPCC’s scientific
neutrality.

When a public figure steps down due to allegations of sexual misconduct
that’s big news. Why isn’t ThinkProgress reporting this news? At what
moment in history would it be more relevant for the public to know that a
top climate official finds himself in this kind of trouble? I mean,
there’s only a major climate summit scheduled for later this year.

Search for ‘Pachauri’ at ThinkProgress and you’ll get 163 hits, or 17 pages of results. There’s

an interview with Pachauri from May 2007
a 2009 story about Pachauri endorsing the activist 350.org’s campaign
a 2010 defense of Pachauri after he is criticized by Roger Pielke Jr. in the New York Times
a 2011 article that refers to Pachauri – an economist and industrial engineer – as the “U.N.’s top climate scientist”
But the mentions of this public figure stop dead on November 2, 2014.
Apparently not a single newsworthy event involving the U.N.’s [former]
top climate scientist has occurred since then.

Let us speak frankly: Climate science is a world in which wealthy
businessmen who make charitable donations to museums are targeted and
ostracized. Yet creeps who write about urinating on women – and who
stand accused of long term, outrageous sexual harassment – get a totally
free pass.

Lockheed Martin, a recent Washington Post article notes, is getting into
renewable energy, nuclear fusion, “sustainability” and even fish
farming projects, to augment its reduced defense profits. The company
plans to forge new ties with Defense Department and other Obama
initiatives, based on a shared belief in manmade climate change as a
critical security and planetary threat. It is charging ahead where other
defense contractors have failed, confident that its expertise, lobbying
skills and “socially responsible” commitment to preventing climate
chaos will land it plentiful contracts and subsidies.

As with its polar counterparts, 90% of the titanic climate funding
iceberg is invisible to most citizens, businessmen and politicians. The
Lockheed action is the mere tip of the icy mountaintop.

The multi-billion-dollar agenda reflects the Obama Administration’s
commitment to using climate change to radically transform America. It
reflects a determination to make the climate crisis industry so enormous
that no one will be able to tear it down, even as computer models and
disaster claims become less and less credible – and even if Republicans
control Congress and the White House after 2016. Lockheed is merely the
latest in a long list of regulators, researchers, universities,
businesses, manufacturers, pressure groups, journalists and politicians
with such strong monetary, reputational and authority interests in
alarmism that they will defend its tenets and largesse tooth and nail.

Above all, it reflects a conviction that alarmists have a right to
control our energy use, lives, livelihoods and living standards, with no
transparency and no accountability for mistakes they make or damage
they inflict on disfavored industries and families. And they are
pursuing this agenda despite global warming again being dead last in the
latest Gallup poll of 15 issues of greatest concern to Americans: only
25% say they worry about it “a great deal,” despite steady hysteria; 24%
are “not at all” worried about the climate. By comparison, 46% percent
worry a great deal about the size and power of the federal
government.

But Climate Crisis, Inc. is using our tax and consumer dollars to advance six simultaneous strategies.

1) Climate research. The US government spends $2.5 billion per year on
research that focuses on carbon dioxide, ignores powerful natural forces
that have always driven climate change, and generates numerous reports
and press releases warning of record high temperatures, melting icecaps,
rising seas, stronger storms, more droughts and other “unprecedented”
crises. The claims are erroneous and deceitful.

They are consistently contradicted by actual climate and weather
records, and so alarmists increasingly emphasize computer models that
reinvent and substitute for reality. Penn State modeler Michael Mann has
collected millions for headline-grabbing work like his latest assertion
that the Gulf Stream is slowing – contrary to 20 years of actual
measurements that show no change. Former NASA astronomer James Hansen
received a questionable $250,000 Heinz Award from Secretary of State
John Kerry’s wife, for his climate crisis and anti-coal advocacy. Al
Gore and 350.org also rake in millions. Alarmist scientists and
institutions seek billions more, while virtually no government money
goes to research into natural forces.

2) Renewable energy research and implementation grants, loans, subsidies
and mandates drive projects to replace hydrocarbons that are still
abundant and still 82% of all US energy consumed. Many recipients went
bankrupt despite huge taxpayer grants and loan guarantees. Wind turbine
installations butcher millions of birds and bats annually, but are
exempt from Endangered Species Act fines and penalties.

Tesla Motors received $256 million to produce electric cars for wealthy
elites who receive $2,500 to $7,500 in tax credits, plus free charging
and express lane access. From 2007 to 2013, corn ethanol interests spent
$158 million lobbying for more “green” mandates and subsidies – and $6
million in campaign contributions – for a fuel that reduces mileage,
damages engines, requires enormous amounts of land, water and
fertilizer, and from stalk to tailpipe emits more carbon dioxide than
gasoline. General Electric spends tens of millions lobbying for more
taxpayer renewable energy dollars; so do many other companies. The
payoffs add up to tens of billions of dollars, from taxpayers and
consumers.

3) Regulatory fiats increasingly substitute for laws and carbon taxes
that Congress refuses to enact, due to concerns about economic and
employment impacts, and because China, India and other countries’ CO2
emissions dwarf America’s. EPA’s war on coal has already claimed
thousands of jobs, raised electricity costs for millions of businesses
and families, and adversely affected living standards, health and
welfare for millions of families. The White House and EPA are also
targeting oil and gas drilling and fracking.

Now the Obama Administration is unleashing a host of new mandates and
standards, based on arbitrary “social cost of carbon” calculations that
assume fossil fuel use imposes numerous climate and other costs, but
brings minimal or no economic or societal benefits. The rules will
require onerous new energy efficiency and CO2 emission reduction
standards that will send consumer costs skyrocketing, while channeling
billions of dollars to retailers, installers, banks and mostly overseas
manufacturers.

4) A new UN climate treaty would limit fossil fuel use by developed
countries, place no binding limits or timetables on developing nations,
and redistribute hundreds of billions of dollars to poor countries that
claim they have been harmed by emissions and warming due to rich country
hydrocarbon use. Even IPCC officials now openly brag that climate
policy has “almost nothing” to do with protecting the environment – and
everything to do with intentionally transforming the global economy and
redistributing its wealth.

5) Vicious personal attacks continue on scientists, businessmen,
politicians and others who disagree publicly with the catechism of
climate cataclysm. Alarmist pressure groups and Democrat members of
Congress are out to destroy the studies, funding, reputations and
careers of all who dare challenge climate disaster tautologies. At
President Obama’s behest, even disaster aid agencies are piling on.

New FEMA rules require that any state seeking disaster preparedness
funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency must first assess how
climate change threatens their communities. This will mean relying on
discredited, worthless alarmist models that routinely spew out
predictions unrelated to reality. It likely means no federal funds will
go to states that include or focus on natural causes, historical records
or models that have better track records than those employed by the
IPCC, EPA and President.

6) Thought control. In addition to vilifying climate chaos skeptics,
alarmists are determined to control all thinking on the subject. They
are terrified that people will find realist analyses and explanations
far more persuasive. They refuse to debate skeptics, respond to NIPCC
and other studies examining natural climate change and carbon dioxide
benefits to wildlife and agriculture, or even admit there is no
consensus.

They want the news media to ignore us but cannot put the internet genie
back in the bottle. The White House is trying, though. It even sent
picketers to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s home, to demand that he knuckle
under and apply 1930s’ telephone laws to the internet, as a first step
in content control

States must refuse to play the climate crisis game. Through lawsuits,
hearings, investigations and other actions, governors, legislators, AGs
and other officials can delay EPA diktats, educate citizens about solar
and other natural forces, and explain the huge costs and trifling
benefits of these draconian regulations.

Congress should hold hearings, demand an accounting of agency
expenditures, require solid evidence for every climate claim and
regulation, and cross-examine Administration officials on details. It
should slash EPA and other agency budgets, so they cannot keep giving
billions to pressure groups, propagandists and attack dogs. Honesty,
transparency, accountability and a much shorter leash are long overdue.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

30 March, 2015

Australia: Infantile Greenies and the "threatened" future of a pretty Tasmanian parrot

The article below is from the environmental writer at the Australian
far-Left "New Matilda" magazine so its truthfulness cannot be
assumed -- but the interesting thing is the approach of the
article. It is typical of "stop everything" environmentalism. It
offers no compromise and no middle way. Instead of assisting
informed decision-making it just does its best to build a roadblock to
action.

In those circumstances, if there are foolish
decisions made about environmental matters the Greens are partly
responsible for that. Most of Tasmmania is locked up under
environmental regulations so there has been no balance at all so
far. The voters have clearly grown tired of that and gave
Tasmania's conservatives an unprecedented clear victory in the last
State election. The conservatives are now doing what they were
elected to do -- unlock some of the locked-off areas. It would be
so much better if they could do it in a consultative way with all
parties -- but compromise is unknown to Greenies. "We want it all"
is their juvenile cry.

A more mature Greenie response to
what the voters have clearly asked for would be to suggest alternative
areas that could be opened up that did not threaten environmental
harm. But in a long article (only partially excerpted below) there
was no whisper of that. They are emotional toddlers

Concerns over the Abbott government’s plans to “deregulate” the
environment and give up much of its environmental powers to the states
found a compelling voice this week, as revelations emerged that the
Tasmanian government approved logging in contravention of expert advice,
knowingly pushing an endangered bird much closer to extinction.

It’s the sort of industry-first approach that environmental lawyers and
conservationists are concerned could become far more common under the
federal government’s so-called ‘One Stop Shop’ reforms.

The policy would drastically diminish the federal environment minister’s
portfolio and see state governments - which stand to gain much more
from big developments, mining, and forestry - vested with assessment and
approval powers over matters of national environmental significance.

The government says the ‘One Stop Shop’ will cut red tape without a drop
in environmental standards but documents obtained by Environment
Tasmania under freedom of information laws, released earlier week, have
raised serious questions over the state’s commitment to conservation.

The Hodgman government has approved the logging of at least three out of
five areas of forest which provide key breeding habitat for the
endangered Swift Parrot, it was revealed, despite repeated advice from
experts that it will hasten the species’ already steep decline to
extinction.

“Conservation objectives for the species at the [local] and regional
scales will not be met” if the areas are logged, scientists within
Tasmania’s environment department warned.

Less than 1,000 breeding pairs of Swift Parrot remain. Each year the
bird undertakes the longest known migration of any parrot, to breed on
the east coast of Tasmania.

The areas the Tasmanian government has now approved for logging are
high-quality nesting habitat that are known to host large numbers of the
just 2,000 remaining individuals during breeding season.

Cutting down forests in this breeding habitat, scientists within the
department warn in one email, “will result in the continued loss of
breeding habitat that has been identified as being of very high
importance for the species with the further fragmentation of foraging
habitat”.

“This cannot contribute to the long term survival of the species.”

Put simply, “there is no scientific evidence to support the position
that continued harvesting of breeding habitat will support conservation
objectives for the species”.

Ordinarily, where matters of national environmental significance such as
threatened species are involved, the federal Environmental Protection
Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act would be triggered and the
Commonwealth government would be tasked with ensuring conservation
outcomes are met.

For the Swift Parrot, though, there was no federal safeguard.

The Tasmanian government was allowed to issue the approvals, and ignore
the expert advice, because of a deal with the federal government, known
as the Regional Forestry Agreement (RFA).

It’s a deal that is remarkably similar to the wholesale hand-over of
powers the Abbott government is pursuing through its One Stop Shop
reform.

The Department of Interior missed an opportunity for real reform
recently when it released new regulations on hydraulic fracturing, or
fracking, on federal lands.

Since the onset of the Obama administration, the U.S. has undergone both
an energy boom that was the bright spot in the great recession and a
heated political battle over the Department of Interior’s lack of
transparency that significantly slowed oil and gas production on federal
lands. It also likely is not the last rule coming from the Obama
administration to regulate fracking.

In typical “If it keeps moving, regulate it” fashion, Interior started a
rule-making process in November 2010 in response to increased fracking
activity and public concerns that were exacerbated by fallacious films
such as Gasland and Matt Damon’s Promised Land.

The rule updates and expands regulation and will be revisited again in
seven years. It is largely duplicative of what states already do to
regulate fracking—adjusting construction standards to protect water
resources and requiring disclosure of chemicals and advance public
notice of fracking activity. Regulations apply to federal and Indian
lands as well as private or state lands where the underground mineral
rights belong to the federal government. States otherwise would regulate
fracking on state and private lands as they have been. Unsurprisingly,
extremist environmental groups did not think the Interior Department
went far enough.

The Department of Interior should have taken the fracking boom as an
opportunity to pivot away from one-size-fits-all regulation and turn
management of fracking activity to the states. Regulation at the state
and local level—as opposed to from Washington—has been a chief reason
for the impressive economic results and environmental record of the new
technology. Even the White House Council of Economic Adviser’s noted in
its annual report to Congress that the regulatory structure that met
local concerns regarding fracking was at the state and local level.

Instead, it has taken Interior five years to develop these new
regulations, and politically driven management of federal lands has
played a significant role in the loss of productivity on those lands.
Meanwhile, states have effectively and efficiently managed the energy
boom on state and private lands even as demand to develop oil and gas
resources has increased. In fact, states have been regulating fracking
for decades. While federal regulators lose even more time putting these
new regulations into practice, states already have policies in place
that reflect the unique conditions of the state.

Federal management of energy resources also has had a chilling effect on
productivity. According to the Congressional Research Service, roughly
43 percent of all proven crude oil reserves in the U.S. are on federal
lands. And yet, since 2009, oil production on federal lands has fallen
by 9 percent even as production on state and private lands has increased
by 61 percent over the same period. In 2010, 36 percent of all domestic
oil production came from federal lands; now only 23 percent does. A
similar story can be told of coal and natural gas. This activity
translated into more jobs and higher incomes.

States have also been more responsive to the unique interests and
concerns of their communities, in contrast to Interior’s approach of
stalling on granting permits to drill for oil and gas. Not a single case
of water contamination has been caused by the process of fracking, and
although there are best practices that must be followed, fracking has
withstood the many myths demonizing the technology.

Some communities have elected to ban the use of fracking technology.
Unfortunate and misguided as that is, good environmental policy puts the
freedom to make decisions in the hands of the people who are affected
most by management choices. Nevertheless, Interior’s rule prevents this
local decision-making.

Congress and energy producers already have responded in kind. In recent
days, 27 senators introduced legislation to block the regulation and the
Independent Petroleum Association of America and Western Energy
Alliance filed a lawsuit against the Department of Interior, calling the
rule “a reaction to unsubstantiated concerns” that “lacks the factual,
scientific or engineering evidence necessary to sustain the agency’s
action.” Ultimately states, not Washington, should regulate fracking
activities on federal lands. They are more knowledgeable and adaptable
to the conditions of each region.

Americans’ concern over environmental issues such as water and air
pollution and extinction of species is down from last year, and the data
show that of all green issues, Americans worry the least about global
warming (or climate change), according to Gallup.

As part of its annual Environmental survey, which Gallup has done for
more than two decades, the surveyors on March 5-8 asked, “I’m going to
read you a list of environmental problems. As I read each one, please
tell me if you personally worry about this problem a great deal, a fair
amount, only a little, or not at all.”

The results showed that when it came to “pollution of drinking
water,” 60% worried about it a “great deal” in 2014 but only 55%
worried about it a “great deal” in 2015.

For “global warming or climate change,” some 34% worried about it a “great deal” in 2014 but that went down to 32% in 2015.

Commenting on the results, Gallup said, “Americans' concern about
several major environmental threats has eased after increasing last
year. As in the past, Americans express the greatest worry about
pollution of drinking water, and the least about global warming or
climate change.”

“[T]he nature of the environmental agenda may indirectly be influencing
Americans' concern,” said Gallup. “The primary focus of the
environmental movement has shifted toward long-term threats like global
warming -- issues about which Americans tend to worry less than about
more immediate threats like pollution.”

“Importantly,” said the surveyors, “even as global warming has received
greater attention as an environmental problem from politicians and the
media in recent years, Americans' worry about it is no higher now than
when Gallup first asked about it in 1989.”

When Gallup broke the data down by political party, Republican versus
Democrat, it found that only 13% of Republicans worry a “great deal”
about global warming in 2015 while 52% of Democrats worry a “great deal”
about the issue.

“Democrats worry more than Republicans about all of the issues,” said
Gallup. “Notably, Democrats are more worried about global warming
now than they were in 2000, perhaps reflecting the shift in the focus of
the environmental agenda toward this issue.”

In its survey, Gallup interviewed by telephone a random sample of 1,025
adults, aged 18 and older, in all 50 states and the District of
Columbia. The poll had a margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points.

A good shower is one of life's simple pleasures. Until it gets interrupted by government.

If you like your shower, you probably can't keep it once the bureaucrats
are done. The War on Women and Men Taking Showers began with a 1992 law
that restricts how much water can flow through each nozzle. In 2010,
the feds cracked down against multiple-nozzle showerheads. Now the EPA
wants to limit how long we can stay in the shower.

The Environmental Protection Agency is subsidizing development by the
University of Tulsa of a shower-timing system that allows people to be
billed according to their time in the shower. The concept starts by
providing hotels with real-time reports on each guest. With normal
bureaucratic progression, this could soon become a requirement that
everybody is metered in their showers at home.

This is government pushing us around. It is part of the “nudge”
philosophy pushed by President Barack Obama's former regulations czar,
Cass Sunstein. He co-authored the book, Nudge, which describes how laws
and regulations can push us to behave the way that government desires.
We pay more for light bulbs, pay more for automobiles, pay more for
electricity, and get less in the shower, all because government denies
us any other choice. Indeed, the EPA grant on timing shower-taking
states that behavior modification is the goal.

What difference does it make when our showering is regulated?

Surveys by soapmakers reveal that two-thirds of us shower (or bathe)
daily, with the average being 5 showers per week. For American men, we
shower 10 minutes at a time, with 15 minutes for women. Those who sing
in the shower usually take longer—and evidently that's a majority of us.

The exact times differ in various studies. According to the EPA, the
average shower is eight minutes, which they say is still too long. EPA
brochures encourage us to drop down by a minute, to what would be a
7-minute norm. That's barely enough time to sing two songs!

Multiple environmental groups want more; they promote a 5-minute max.
Many of these advocate taking an even-briefer “Navy shower”: 1) turn on
water to rinse your hair and body; 2) turn off the water while you apply
shampoo, use soap, and scrub; 3) turn on the water for a quick
rinse-off, then turn it off and dry yourself.

That's hardly enough time to sing a single verse.

It's easy to imagine an EPA-run system that shuts off our water
automatically when we reach their time limit. The agency claims it has
no such plan; it is only making suggestions for shorter showers. But the
bureaucratic practice is that suggestions become guidelines, which
become policies, which become legally-binding regulations.

Bit-by-bit and drop-by-drop, the feds are stifling our showering.

The original restrictions were enacted by Congress in 1992, signed by
President George H.W. Bush. That Clean Water Act dictated low-flow
showerheads (2.5 gallons-per-minute max), along with 1.6
gallons-per-flush toilets. Many people turned to multi-nozzle showers to
get as one workaround. Then came President Barack Obama. His
bureaucrats in 2010 re-interpreted the law and declared that all nozzles
combined cannot exceed 2.5 gpm. They filed lawsuits against fixture
manufacturers to enforce this.

EPA keeps pushing the envelope even farther. They seek to lower the norm
to 2.0 gpm or less, via a series of “WaterSense” incentive awards.
Innkeepers, manufacturers, homebuilders, contractors and others are
asked to sign a written agreement with the EPA to voluntarily lower
their allowed legal limit of water use. Those groups are then allowed to
use the “WaterSense” logo on their products and advertising; they
benefit from EPA's marketing campaign that supports the label.

Is all this restriction on water usage really necessary? There is no
shortage of water, not even what can be made available for
drought-stricken California. The problem is that moving, processing and
reclaiming water all require energy. And the constant environmentalist
crackdown on energy sources keeps making it too expensive to get the
water everyplace where it is needed.

The federal restrictions, however, apply equally to all parts of the country, whether local water problems exist there or not.

The law of supply and demand still works. Those who choose to use more
H2O can pay higher water bills for the privilege. But green advocates
complain that it's unfair to let people consume more of a product simply
because they can afford to do so.

What goes unmentioned is that low-flow showerheads cost more for
everyone. Manufacturers must add extra internal features to enhance the
water velocity, otherwise the low-flow might dribble out and fail to
wash away the suds. For decent quality, the lower the flow, the higher
the price.

Meanwhile, Americans are engaged in massive civil disobedience about
showering. Many purchasers of new showerheads—the majority, according to
reports—soon remove the flow restrictor or drill a larger hole in the
shower fitting so they can enjoy more than just 2.5 gallons per minute.

Perhaps someday this will lead to a modern-day Boston Tea Party. But
this time it would be the low-flow nozzles and toilets that get dumped
in the harbor.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in Michigan v. EPA, a
case that has the potential to either check the Environmental Protection
Agency’s runaway abuse of power or give it unchecked authority to
bankrupt any industry it sees fit.

At issue is the agency’s duty to adhere to the Clean Air Act’s
“appropriate and necessary” standard when issuing and enforcing
regulations. The EPA published mercury and air toxin standards in 2012
that, by the agency’s own estimates, would cost the economy close to $10
billion annually. The public health benefits supposedly to be gained
from the rules would amount to $6 million annually at the most, meaning
that every $20,000 of regulatory fees that the energy industry pays
would lead to only $1 in public benefit. What a deal.

The EPA argues economic cost is not a factor when considering whether
regulations are appropriate and necessary, claiming environmental
benefits alone are what concern the agency.

When the case was before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Brett
Kavanaugh’s dissent took the EPA to task: “Your only statutory direction
is to decide whether it is ‘appropriate’ to go forward with the
regulation. Before making that decision, what information would you want
to know? You would certainly want to understand the benefits from the
regulations. And you would surely ask how much the regulations would
cost. You would no doubt take both of those considerations – benefits
and costs – into account in making your decision. That’s just common
sense and sound government practice.”

The EPA, though, is not concerned with common sense or legality. Its
goal with the mercury regulations, among the costliest in history, is to
drive coal-fired power plants out of business. And it’s all part of
Barack Obama’s strategy to make sure electricity prices “necessarily
skyrocket.”

During oral arguments before the Supreme Court, Justice Stephen Breyer,
one of the Obama administration’s most loyal water carriers, tried to
justify the EPA’s position. He suggested that the agency would consider
the appropriateness of costs at some later point when enforcing the
mercury rule since, under the Clean Air Act, the EPA has the power to
apply rules in an “appropriate and necessary” manner.

It’s hoped that the legal minds of at least five Supreme Court justices
will be sharp enough to recognize the contradiction of such an argument.
If the EPA wasn’t concerned about whether its measures were appropriate
at the regulatory rulemaking phase, then where’s the incentive to
revisit the appropriate cost later on? Furthermore, if the EPA has the
ability to decide whether the regulatory cost was appropriate at a later
date, then it’s engaging in an action that it has stated in this case
it need not do.

In Michigan v. EPA, the agency argues Rule of Law is irrelevant. If the
Supreme Court rightly disagrees, then it will rule against this rogue
EPA.

“Sustainability” is a key idea on college campuses in the United States
and the rest of the Western world. To the unsuspecting, sustainability
is just a new name for environmentalism. But the word really marks out a
new and larger ideological territory in which curtailing economic,
political, and intellectual liberty is the price that must be paid now
to ensure the welfare of future generations.

This report is the first in-depth critical study of the sustainability
movement in higher education. The movement, of course, extends well
beyond the college campus. It affects party politics, government
bureaucracy, the energy industry, Hollywood, schools, and consumers.

But the college campus is where the movement gets its voice of
authority, and where it molds the views and commands the attention of
young people.

While we take no position in the climate change debate, we focus in this
study on how the sustainability movement has distorted higher
education. We examine the harm it has done to college curricula and the
limits it has imposed on the freedom of students to inquire and to make
their own decisions.

Our report also offers an anatomy of the campus sustainability movement
in the United States. We explain how it came to prominence and how it is
organized. We also examine the financial costs to colleges and
universities in their efforts to achieve some of the movement’s goals.

Often the movement presents its program as saving these institutions
money. But we have found that American colleges and universities
currently spend more than $3.4 billion per year pursuing their dreams of
“sustainability” at a time when college tuitions are soaring and 7.5
percent of recent college graduates are unemployed and another 46
percent underemployed.

In addition to the direct costs of the movement, we examine the growing
demands by sustainability advocates that colleges and universities
divest their holdings in carbon-based energy companies without regard to
forgone income or growth in their endowments.

What makes “sustainability” so important that institutions facing
financial distress are willing to prioritize spending on it? In this
report, we examine that question. Because the idea of “anthropogenic
global warming”—or “climate change”—is so closely interwoven with the
sustainability movement, we devote a chapter early in the report to
laying out the arguments on both sides of the debate.

The appeal of the sustainability movement depends to a great extent on
the belief that the world is experiencing catastrophic warming as a
result of human activities that are increasing the amount of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere. Is this belief warranted?

We are neutral on this proposition, but we stand by the principle that
all important ideas ought to be open to reasoned debate and careful
examination of the evidence. This puts us and others at odds with many
in the sustainability movement whose declared position is that the time
for debate is over and that those who persist in raising basic questions
are “climate deniers.”

The “debate-isover” position is itself at odds with intellectual freedom
and is why the campus sustainability movement should be examined
skeptically.

We support good stewardship of natural resources, but we see in the
sustainability movement a hardening of irrational demands to suspend
free inquiry in favor of unproven theories of imminent catastrophe.

And we see, under the aegis of sustainability, a movement that often
takes its bearings from its hostility towards material prosperity,
consumerism, free markets, and even democratic self-government.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

29 March, 2015

South Pole's icy edge is rapidly vanishing: Antarctic ice shelves have shrunk by as much as 18% in ten years, claims study

Amusing. The ice loss has accelerated in the last decade.
But there has been no global warming in the last decade. So the
loss CANNOT be due to global warming. If the data is sound -- a
very big IF when looking at Warmist research -- the effect is probably
due to sub-surface vulcanism -- with a lot of that being revealed
recently

Antarctica's icy edge is disappearing in warming ocean waters, with the
last decade seeing the rate of ice loss increase dramatically.

This is according to a new study that has combined 18-years worth of ice
shelf thinning data from three different sets of satellites.

The researchers claim that some ice shelves in West Antarctica have lost
as much as 18 per cent of their volume in the last ten years.

Satellite data from 1994 to 2012 clearly shows the accelerating decline
which could hasten the rise in global sea levels, scientists say.

The findings, published today in the journal Science, come amid concern
among many scientists about the effects of global climate change on
Earth's vast, remote polar regions.

During the study period's first half, to about 2003, the overall volume
decline around Antarctica was small, with West Antarctica losses almost
balanced out by gains in East Antarctica.

After that, western losses accelerated and gains in the east ended.

'There has been more and more ice being lost from Antarctica's floating
ice shelves,' said glaciologist Helen Fricker of the Scripps Institution
of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego.

The Crosson Ice Shelf in the Amundsen Sea and the Venable Ice Shelf in
the Bellingshausen Sea, both in West Antarctica, each shrank about 18
percent during the study period.

'If the loss rates that we observed during the past two decades are
sustained, some ice shelves in the Amundsen and Bellingshausen seas
could disappear within this century,' added Scripps geophysics doctoral
candidate Fernando Paolo.

The melting of these ice shelves does not directly affect sea levels because they are already floating.

'This is just like your glass of gin and tonic. When the ice cubes melt,
the level of liquid in the glass does not rise,' Paolo said.

But the floating ice shelves provide a restraining force for land-based
ice, and their reduction would increase the flow of the ice from the
land into the ocean, which would increase sea levels.

'While it is fair to say that we're seeing the ice shelves responding to
climate change, we don't believe there is enough evidence to directly
relate recent ice shelf losses specifically to changes in global
temperature,' Fricker said.

DESPITE the uncertainty expressed by his own FEMA head:
"Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Craig Fugate said the
frequency of tornadoes and hurricanes is cyclical, and he doesn’t know
if global warming has anything to do with it. Should Obama's own FEMA
head be denied funding?.

If you can’t beat ‘em, buy 'em! That’s the President’s new approach to
climate change skeptics in conservative states. The Obama administration
is apparently so desperate for support that it’s willing to blackmail
governors into adding global warming to their disaster planning – or
block their federal funds. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management
Agency, said the conform-or-pay rules would go into effect next March.
In the meantime, governors have a choice: they can bow down to the
Left’s faulty science or lose millions of dollars in FEMA relief
planning.

Under the new regulations, only states that tackle the effects of
“changing environmental or climate conditions” in their long-term
“hazard-mitigation plans” will qualify for funding. Specifically,
governors must “identify tools and approaches that enable
decision-making to reduce risks and increase resilience from a changing
climate.” It’s a shocking amount of political arm-twisting, even for
this administration.

Clearly, the rules were made to hurt – and it’s no secret whom.
Republican Governors like Rick Scott (Fla.), Bobby Jindal (La.), Chris
Christie (N.J.), Pat McCrory (N.C.), and Greg Abbott (Texas) have been
openly critical of the administration’s climate push, and these
guidelines are payback. Of course, many of these regions – including my
home state of Louisiana – are coastal, meaning that they are especially
vulnerable to storms and other natural disasters. And while FEMA
promises that it won’t attach these same strings to hurricane, flood, or
other post-disaster relief, the administration’s word is about as
reliable as the Left’s science.

Interestingly enough, FEMA’s extortion plan comes on the heels of a
pretty damning report from key environmental experts, who agreed last
year that the White House’s National Climate Assessment is a
“masterpiece of marketing” that crumbles like a “house of cards” under
the weight of real-world evidence. In an open letter, the group of 15
blasted the government’s “climate models” for “dramatically fail(ing)
basic verification tests. Nowhere do they admit to these well-known
failures. Instead, we are led to believe that their climate models are
close to perfection.” The real damage control started well before when
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was forced to admit that
the world’s temperatures haven’t risen in 17 years. (If you thought the
holes in the Ozone layer were big, you should see the ones in the Left’s
credibility!)

Without any real science to prop up his agenda, the President is pulling
a page from his abortion playbook: government extortion. Unfortunately,
this kind of ideological hostage-taking is nothing new for the White
House. When Catholic Charities wouldn’t pledge allegiance to the
administration’s abortion views, HHS pulled the plug on more than $5
million in human trafficking grants, despite the fact Catholic Charities
is among the most qualified organizations to render aid and assistance
to the trafficked.

Obviously, the totalitarian tactics of this administration knows no
bounds. “This story really brings together all the elements of
Obamaism,” writes Dan McLaughlin. As HotAir puts it, “It’s legally
dubious; it ignores Congress… it’s an obvious political pander to the
Left with a bonus of putting right-wingers in a spot, even at the
expense of placing citizens at risk; and it (mocks) state autonomy.
Basically, it’s the environmental equivalent of executive amnesty. All
that’s missing is 18-24 months of Obama statements denying that he’d
ever do something like this before turning around and doing it.”

Photosynthesis (PS) is the process by which algae and plants convert
carbon dioxide (CO2) to organic matter, like the wood of trees. Any
other organism on this planet that is not an alga or plant itself feeds
on the former. Therefore, CO2 is the source of all life on earth. There
is not a single organism that does not require the carbon atom as a
basic building block.

Photosynthesis brings about another product, rarely mentioned but vital
to all higher organisms on the planet, and that is molecular oxygen
(O2). There is no other source of O2 on earth but photosynthesis.
Therefore, without carbon dioxide there also would be no free oxygen in
our atmosphere.
Oxygen (O2)

Without oxygen in the water there would be no fish. Without oxygen in
the air there would be no mammals on land. Oxygen is the material
organisms need to turn the plant-accumulated sun-energy into energy
useful for our ability to move and propagate. Given its concentration in
the air alone, nearly 21%, oxygen is approximately 500 times the level
of CO2 that makes up 0.04% (even after burning all the fossil fuels for
centuries). As you can see, there is little CO2 but plenty of O2 in the
atmosphere.

Given the fact that all free molecular O2 in our atmosphere and water
comes solely from CO2 via the photosynthesis (PS) process, you may
wonder if this was a “slow and steady” accumulation of O2 or if there
were epochs in the earth history that really got the PS process going in
grand style. Indeed, the latter was the case and it’s what scientists
commonly refer to as “the great oxygenation events” (GOEs). Actually,
there were two such periods. The first one some two billion years ago
(plus or minus a few million) and second one a billion-plus years later.
Now, don’t get the idea that the GOE happened over night or even over a
few thousand years. In geological terms such “short” periods are not
even mentionable. No, each GEO took many millions of years.

The Great Oxygenation Event

However, the GOE is real, particularly the second one. It was a time of
great plant exuberance on earth. Plants like the modern-day horsetail
(Equisetum sp.) and the long-extinct scale trees were growing all over
like mad. In some of the coal seams, their imprints can still be found.
The GOE happened mainly during the (geological) Carboniferous period
stretching from 350 to 300 million years ago. During these 50 million
years, a great part of the atmospheric CO2 was converted by PS to O2.

Actually, the PS process was so active then that the O2 concentration in
the air rose to 35%, nearly double the level it is today. The decline
since took many more millions of years to distribute it “more justly”
between the atmosphere and the ocean water. Today, the oceans hold much
of that formerly “excess” molecular oxygen. But now back to the “evil”
carbon dioxide.
Carbon Dioxide (CO2)

As mentioned already but worth repeating here: the entire supply of
molecular oxygen on earth is derived from that CO2. Naturally (pun
intended) the PS process did not just create the oxygen, it also had a
“side effect” of reducing the atmosphere’s content of CO2. Around the
time of the GOE, the atmosphere contained more than ten times the level
of today and before that it was more than a 100 times that level.

Despite the planet’s continuous (and still continuing) attempts to keep
the atmosphere supplied with an adequate level of that CO2 stuff it had
steadily declined to a level of approximately 200 ppm (parts per
million). At that concentration, plants simply become starved of
available CO2 as its partial pressure can no longer sustain PS. Mother
Nature’s PS process consumed more CO2 than all the thousands of volcanic
vents and eruptions could push into the air. Luckily for all life on
earth, the algae and plants did not die out and managed to slow down
their CO2 consumption by “hibernating” until they could once more
“breathe again freely” when the CO2 level had increased again. There is
evidence in for that in the renewed growth of ancient redwood trees in
California.

You’d think these facts alone would be enough to get the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), all
“anti-carbon-footprint-advisors” like the United Nations’ IPCC and many
NGOs to reconsider. Not a chance. They are hell-bent to call it
pollution. Even the U.S. Supreme Court said so (perhaps you can forward
the link to this post or a copy to the court and/or to any of the
elected officials in your area); they might just be interested in
getting this info.

In any event, I think it’s an appropriate contribution to this year’s
“Earth Hour” on Saturday, March 28, 2015. The WWF and other NGOs are
asking you to curtail your “carbon footprint” for the “sake of Mother
Nature.” Some folks then have a candle light dinner or candle light
party.

Major peer-review scandal causes withdrawal of 43 published scientific papers

Peer review cannot prevent dishonesty or bias

There’s a lot of unsettled science going on these days. The peer-review
system, which is supposed to serve as a quality assurance system,
allowing credentialed experts to pass judgment on new research before it
is published, is breaking down. The latest in a series of scandals
involves 43 papers, but more are expected to follow.

Fred Barbash of the Washington Post reports:

"A major publisher of scholarly medical and science
articles has retracted 43 papers because of “fabricated” peer reviews
amid signs of a broader fake peer review racket affecting many more
publications.

The publisher is BioMed Central, based in the United
Kingdom, which puts out 277 peer-reviewed journals. A partial list of
the retracted articles suggests most of them were written by scholars at
universities in China, including China Medical University, Sichuan
University, Shandong University and Jiaotong University Medical School.
But Jigisha Patel, associate editorial director for research integrity
at BioMed Central, said it’s not “a China problem. We get a lot of
robust research of China. We see this as a broader problem of how
scientists are judged.”

Meanwhile, the Committee on Publication Ethics, a
multidisciplinary group that includes more than 9000 journal editors,
issued a statement suggesting a much broader potential problem. The
committee, it said, “has become aware of systematic, inappropriate
attempts to manipulate the peer review processes of several journals
across different publishers.” Those journals are now reviewing
manuscripts to determine how many may need to be retracted, it said."

Science has become a major industry, with the billions of dollars of
government funding available not just in the US but worldwide providing
incentives for cheating. Promotion in universities depends on
publication in peer-reviewed journals, so desperate academics seek it,
no matter how trivial or even phony the results. In addition, in
medicine, climate science, and many other fields, huge financial stakes
exist for non-scientists, leading to pressure on the peers who do the
reviewing. As the Clmategate emails revealed, conspiracies among the
peers who review can lead to suppression of research contrary to the
interests of the conspirators.

The integrity of science – and the continued progress of mankind –
depends on the efficacy of peer review. We are at a critical point, with
the danger of phony science misleading us into dead ends and worse.

Decision of the Complaints Committee: 021014 Ward v The Mail on Sunday

1. Bob Ward complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation
that The Mail on Sunday had breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’
Code of Practice in an article headlined “Exposed: Myth of Artic
Meltdown”, published on 31/08/2014.

2. The article reported that the Arctic ice extent had increased over the last two years.

3. The complainant was concerned that the article gave the inaccurate
impression that the long-term decline in Arctic sea ice had reversed. He
said that the article had omitted the fact that the Arctic sea ice
extent in August 2014 had been the seventh-lowest recorded level since
records began. He also said that the article had not made clear that the
2012 reading had been the lowest on record, nor had the article
explained that, on numerous occasions, the ice extent had increased for
one year, without reversing the overall decline.

4. Further, the complainant said that the article had inaccurately
reported that there was no evidence that the number of polar bears were
declining. He said that latest estimates indicated that, of the 19
sub-populations of polar bears, four are declining, five are stable and
one is increasing; there was not enough data to estimate trends for the
other nine sub-populations. The article had included a graph recording
Arctic Sea extent over the last ten years headlined “How melt has slowed
over 10 years”. The complainant said that the graph was significantly
misleading as the linear trend in the sea ice extent data was steeper
for the period between 2004 and 2014 than it was for the entire record
of 1979 to 2014.

5. The complainant said that the newspaper had also inaccurately
reported the comments made by the American politician Al Gore; it said
that in 2007 Mr Gore had suggested that the North Polar Ice Cap could be
completely gone in seven years. The complainant said that it had been
significantly misleading to omit that, while he had cited one study
which predicted that this would be the case, he had also cited a
different study which had suggested it could happen by 2029.

6. The complainant said that the newspaper should acknowledge that the
article was inaccurate and significantly misleading, publish his letter
in full and provide an assurance that it would take greater care to
ensure that future articles on this issue were accurate.

7. The newspaper said that the “myth” mentioned in the headline was the
claim that the Arctic might be ice-free by 2014. The article had
reported the unexpected increase in Arctic sea ice over the past two
years, but it had made clear that the long-term trend remains in
decline, caused, at least in part, by human activity. The newspaper said
that the article had included a considerable amount of balancing
material and had quoted several scientists.

8. In relation to polar bears, the article had acknowledged that that
there was “no reliable data from almost half the Arctic, so it cannot
say whether numbers are falling or rising”. It had not been
significantly misleading on this point.

9. The graph headlined “How melt has slowed over 10 years” had been
accurate; readers could see for themselves how the levels of ice have
gone down over the past 10 years, and up in the last two.

10. While the newspaper did not accept that the article was
significantly misleading, it offered to publish a lightly amended
version of the complainant’s letter. The complainant’s letter would make
clear that he considered the article to be misleading.

Findings of the Committee

12. Topics such as the effects of climate change and global warming
remain matters of intense discussion and debate. Under the terms of
Clause 1, newspapers are entitled to publish controversial or unorthodox
views on such issues, provided that they are not inaccurate or
significantly misleading.

13. The article presented the author’s view that forecasts regarding the
melting of Arctic ice had overestimated the rate of decline. The
complainant did not dispute that measures showed that the Arctic ice
extent had increased over the last two years. The article had made clear
that the long-term trend still showed a decline, and the coverage had
included commentary from a number of scientists, expressing a variety of
views on the matter, including one who had stated that he was
“uncomfortable with the idea of people saying the ice had bounced back”,
and warned against reading too much into the ice increases. The article
had made clear that scientific opinions regarding the significance of
the most recent data varied. In this context, the omission of the
information that the measure in 2012 had been the lowest on record, and
that 2014 had still been the seventh lowest since records began, was not
significantly misleading. The article did not suggest that it had been
established as fact that the long-term decline in Arctic sea ice had
reversed.

14. The article had made clear that the Polar Bear Specialist Group
admitted that it did not have the necessary data to establish whether
the numbers of polar bears was rising or falling. In this context, it
had not been significantly misleading to suggest that there was no
scientific evidence to establish that the number of bears was declining.

15. The article had been illustrated with a graph which plotted the
Artic Sea extent in millions of square kilometres, titled “How melt has
slowed over 10 years”. While the Committee noted the complainant’s
concern that the linear trend in the sea ice extent data was steeper
for the period between 2004 and 2014 than it was for the entire record
of 1979 to 2014, in circumstances in which the complainant did not
dispute that the graph had been plotted accurately, the Committee was
satisfied that the presentation of the data had not been significantly
misleading.

16. The complainant was concerned that the newspaper had misrepresented a
speech by Al Gore. As Mr Gore had cited a study which projected that
the Arctic sea ice could disappear by 2014, it had not been
significantly misleading to omit that he had also cited a different
study which had suggested it could happen by 2029. The Committee also
noted that the newspaper had tried to contact Al Gore for comment on
this matter. There was no breach of the Code. Nonetheless, the Committee
welcomed the newspaper’s offer to publish a letter from the
complainant.

It’s Time to use U.S. Oil to make the World Far Safer
by STEVE CHAMBERS March 24, 2015

The United States has the opportunity to use vast, untapped reserves of
oil to make the world far safer, now and for generations to come.
These reserves would eliminate the world's concerns about where its oil
would come from, how much it would cost, or whether it might be shut off
by Mideast warfare or willful disruptions. They would defund some
of the world's worst regimes. And they would be profitable at
today's prices, so pose no economic burden and in fact would provide
many economic benefits. The only thing standing in the way of
developing them is feverish environmental fear.

The world consumes about 92 million barrels per day of oil, or roughly
34 billion barrels a year. The oil market is quite separate from
the rest of the energy market. Lawrence Livermore Labs provides
data that show that 70% of oil consumption in this country fuels
transportation (the rest going primarily to industrial uses as both
energy and chemical feedstocks), while transportation burns oil for 92%
of its fuel. Therefore, the oil market is quite separate from
other sources of electrical generation, whether coal, nuclear reactors,
or windmills. This pattern is similar around the globe.
Global consumption has been growing quite steadily at just about 1% per
year and is likely to continue to do so, even allowing for the numerous
initiatives to make transportation less dependent on oil, including
electric vehicles.

The economic growth of China and India, along with smaller countries,
makes continued oil consumption growth virtually certain, and they might
actually force growth to accelerate. Each of those two giants
alone is likely almost to double current total oil consumption by the
time their economies yield per capita incomes comparable to the
developed world, which should happen in the next generation or
two. The faster they grow their economies, the faster global oil
consumption will grow.

Supplying this growing demand are officially declared, proven oil
reserves of approximately 1.6 trillion barrels, which would last
approximately 47 years at current consumption levels - but which will
dwindle much faster as Chinese and Indian consumption grow. Almost
half of these global reserves lie under the sands of the Mideast, and
would outlast reserves in most other areas given the various current
production rates, so the world would become more and more reliant on
Muslim oil. As terrorism has bitterly taught the world in the past
14 years, some of the revenues from these Mideast reserves are being
used to spread virulent versions of Islamic ideology and its
accompanying jihad throughout the world. If it weren't for these
oil revenues, militant Islam wouldn't be a major global problem.

Of these global proven reserves, the U.S. contributes only about 30
billion barrels, or less than 2%, despite the rapid increase of reserves
from the shale oil fracking boom. At the current consumption of
about 19 million barrels per day, these reserves would only last 4 years
if not supplemented by imports and further discoveries. Canada
officially contributes 173 billion barrels, the third largest in the
world, after Venezuela and Saudi Arabia; however, this number grossly
understates the real potential in Canada.

The large majority of Canada's reserves come from the heavy oil in the
sand formations of far northern Alberta. These are variously
estimated actually to contain between 1.6 and 2.5 trillion barrels -
that is 1.0-1.6 times global proven conventional reserves. Not all
of these reserves can necessarily be recovered at current prices, but
clearly the potential is enormous. The lowest cost technology to
tap these reserves is economic at about $60-65 per barrel (on a West
Texas Intermediate oil price equivalent), according to the Canadian
Research Institute, with alternative approaches requiring prices about
$30 higher.

But the U.S. reserves are also grossly understated. In the high
scrub brush terrain of the Green River area of western Colorado, eastern
Utah, and southwest Wyoming lie shale formations on or near the surface
that are estimated to contain up to 3 trillion barrels - twice the
global proven reserves. Pilot programs have demonstrated that
these reserves would be economic at about $35-54 per barrel, per the
U.S. Department of Energy. Combining the reserves in the Canadian
oil sands with those in the Rockies shales, North America could triple
the world's reserves of oil, at today's prices.

Despite the prodigious profit potential of these reserves, only three
companies have recently begun tentatively developing them. This is
because the vast majority of the reserves lie on Federal lands that are
not available for development.

This was not always the case. Towards the end of its last term,
the Bush administration issued regulatory policies, over the objections
of Congressional Democrats, making these reserves more accessible than
they had been. The Obama administration reversed those polices in
November 2012. The reason: concerns about anthropogenic climate
change (ACC).

Proponents of ACC theories hate all forms of carbon energy, but they
harbor a special animus for both Canadian oil sands and Rockies oil
shales. Producing them requires large amounts of heat, which
requires burning natural gas or oil itself, significantly increasing the
carbon footprint of each barrel of oil. As a consequence,
environmentalists not only block the development of the Rockies shales,
but are also blocking the XL Pipeline that would safely and efficiently
transport the Canadian oil to Gulf Coast refineries, where it could be
efficiently processed in facilities that were built to handle heavy
Venezuelan crude oil.

ACC proponents greatly overstate both the strength of their evidence and
the consequences of the potential problems, as an increasing amount of
research and findings is demonstrating, including from ACC-promoting
scientists. Indeed, even their common claim that, in the words of
Vice President Kerry, "Ninety-seven percent of the world's scientists
tell us" that ACC is an "urgent" problem turns out to be a fiction.

Many scientists, including MIT professor emeritus of meteorolgy Richard
Lindzen, have repeatedly pointed to flaws in the ACC theories, most
recently Lindzen in a Wall Street Journal article. In his article,
he not only points out that ACC promoters' own models have predicted
rapidly rising global temperatures for the last 15 years while actual
temperatures have been flat, but also that the proposals to reduce
atmospheric carbon dioxide would be onerous for developed economies and
crushing for developing ones. Not incidentally, he also describes
how Congressional devotees of ACC are trying to use the power of the
Federal government to silence skeptics of accepted ACC wisdom.

Several panels of eminent economists, including many Nobel laureates,
studied the likely impact of ACC under the aegis of the Copenhagen
Consensus. They, along with others such as energy specialist Alex
Epstein (in his new book, The Earth is Not a God), have reached
conclusions about ACC's economic consequences similar to those of
climate scientists such as Professor Lindzen. They have also
pointed out that the policies environmentalists propose would hurt
people in developing economies in the short and medium term and thus
stunt their long term economic growth. It's worth noting,
incidentally, that the Copenhagen Consensus panels accepted the premise
of ACC in reaching their conclusions.

Ironically, by hurting long term growth in developing countries, ACC
proponents' policies would make it harder for the people in those
countries to deal with the problems that they worry will occur. If
those developing economies instead grew and developed, their people
would be able to adapt to and substantially mitigate the predicted
negative impacts of ACC - if any in fact materialized.
Consequently, poorer countries are not concerned about addressing
ACC. They recognize a greater urgency to improve the economic lot
of their people today and grow their income to the levels enjoyed by
developed countries and won't sacrifice these gains to address problems
that might or might not occur generations from now. Nor are
developing countries such as Venezuela, Nigeria, and China interested in
suppressing their own oil production industries.

The ACC proponents' opposition to American oil is a fool's errand.
They can't stop everyone's oil from reaching the global market, just
America's, but oil is fungible, so stopping American oil only is
pointless. Other countries also have large oil reserves,
particularly the Venezuelans, who claim the world's largest reserves, at
just under 300 billion barrels. The large majority of these are
oil sands, just as carbon-intensive as Canada's, that lie in the nearly
inaccessible Orinoco basin. Their production costs would be
comparable to Canada's. For the time being, the country's parlous
economic and political situation are preventing production. Yet
even if Venezuela can overcome these problems, one must ask: Does the
world really want this unstable nation and ally of Cuba and Iran to
become the next Saudi Arabia? Would the world not prefer to have
the U.S. and Canada be the guarantors of oil security?

Even without the Venezuelans, other producers, such as Russia, Angola,
and Nigeria, will bring new reserves onto the market, albeit probably at
higher prices than North American producers would demand, and probably
with their own political baggage. High oil prices would be a
grudgingly accepted consolation prize for environmentalists, as it might
lead to more conservation. But the price difference would likely
be oil in a range a range of $90-110 from higher cost sources versus of
$55-90 from the Canadian oil sands and Rockies' shale. Is the
limited conservation that this might induce enough to warrant preventing
the U.S. from developing its huge reserves? Consider the broader
context.

Imagine the geopolitical impact of bountiful and moderately priced oil
coming from two stable North American democracies. The greatest
impact would be on the militant Muslim petrostates, who are using their
oil revenues as a weapon, exporting their extreme versions of Islam and
funding terror and turmoil around the world. Even more troubling,
Iran's regime is currently in the process of trying to gain control the
oil reserves of the Saudis, Iraq, and the other Mideast oil
producers. If it succeeds, it will be able unilaterally to
threaten the non-Muslim world with oil disruptions - particularly if it
obtains nuclear weapons. But with virtually unlimited, moderate
cost oil from North America, the oil receipts of Iran - as well as the
Saudis - will be far below their current budgetary needs. Not only
will the Iranian regime have less money to fund its jihadist,
expansionist plans, but the leverage it would hope to gain will
virtually disappear, at least once the U.S. shale reserves are actually
producing. On the other hand, not developing these reserves will
be an open invitation to the ayatollahs to continue to use oil as a
sword of its jihad.

Moreover, the significant fiscal pressure that Iran would face for the
foreseeable future might force the regime to curtail or even drop its
nuclear arms program. As a minimum, such constraints would force
them to seek means other than oil exports to fund their regime and its
vicious pet programs. At best, the ensuing pressure on Iran's
broader economy and people could precipitate merciful regime change.

This same economic vice would grip the Saudis and other militant Islamic
petrostates, as well as Russia and Venezuela. These bad actors
would have to find other ways to finance their mayhem and
ambitions. Better yet, they would have to abandon them, to
everyone else's benefit.

Consider also what this would mean for major oil consuming
nations. The Chinese regime would not have to worry about where
its oil would come from, or whether disruptions in the Mideast could
throttle its economic growth, leading to social unrest that might topple
the regime and threaten the lives of the Party bosses. This would
affect their calculations about whether they need to devote so many of
the nation's scarce resources to the blue water navy that it is now
rapidly building to control sea lanes and dominate offshore oil
reserves. Perhaps with less uncertainty about oil, the Chinese
government could be persuaded to be less expansionist and bellicose.

Meanwhile, India and the rest of the developing world would not have to
worry about oil security, either, and would be able to focus their
efforts and resources on other, more productive matters of economic
development. Furthermore, with secure, moderate cost energy, these
countries should be able to grow more quickly than with higher cost
oil. Such higher growth would not only be a global good in its own
right, it might enable some poor residents of an India or Tanzania, who
otherwise might not survive to adulthood or receive an education, to
develop technology that helps control the problems ACC might create- or
demonstrate that there are no such problems in the first place.

Turning to Europe, its people would not be held in thrall by Muslim - or
Russian - oil exporters. This should have a liberating effect on
their governments' attitudes towards these exporters and the Mideastern
immigrants that are causing such burdens on their economies and
disruption in their societies. Stable, moderately priced oil would
also produce much wider benefits for their economies.

Summarizing this geopolitical opportunity, America's vast oil reserves
could be an important offensive economic weapon to help pacify,
stabilize, and develop the world. America could free the world
from the risks of oil disruptions or price gyrations, not to mention the
violence funded by Muslim and Russian oil revenues, to which the ACC
proponents now subject us.

In addition to all those significant benefits, one must consider the
substantial economic gains the U.S. would receive. Our trade
deficit would fall dramatically; every million barrels per day of oil
exported would produce about $22 billion in revenue. The U.S.
Treasury would receive sizable windfalls from the combination of
additional royalties on the oil produced and taxes on the profits of oil
producers and income of workers. Assuming an average royalty of
12.5%, reportedly the average for the last 100 years, for every
additional 1 million barrels per day of production, the Treasury would
receive about $2.7 billion. If the Rockies could supply the
incremental growth of the world over the next decade, that would reach
roughly 10 million barrels a day in production, or exports of $220
billion per year (roughly half the trade deficit in 2013 of $472
billion) and royalties of $27 billion. As the late Senator Everett
Dirksen would have noted, we'd then be talking about "real money," even
if the U.S. had to split the exports with Canada.

In addition to these benefits, the economy would reap many other
rewards. Well paying jobs would proliferate throughout the Rockies
and along the routes that oil would follow for refining and
export. The benefits of these job increases would ripple
throughout the economy. Stable energy prices at reasonable levels
would lower risk and hence allow higher returns on capital and greater
productivity gains throughout the economy. At the likely price
levels, this situation might even help stimulate alternative, "clean"
energy technologies by giving them a moderately high and stable price as
a target. Finally, greater geopolitical stability could even lead
to a peace dividend.

The U.S. thus has the opportunity to make the world safer while
substantially helping its own sluggish and debt-burdened economy.
Our choice is a simple but stark one: to use our energy as a weapon to
defund and defang the jihad and a resurgent Russian empire while
promoting global economic growth and stability; or to allow ACC
proponents to perpetuate policies that endanger world peace and burden
the global economy with high costs for dubious benefits. Once we
decide, the next step is simple. The only thing Washington needs
to do is to cut the red tape that is strangling our vast oil reserves
(both Rockies shales and others on Federal land) and let private
enterprise do the rest.

It's time for the American people to take a hard, clear-eyed,
open-minded look at ACC worries and decide whether they really warrant
leaving our oil weapon in its scabbard, despite all the good its use
could do. Already, poll after poll reports that Americans are
overwhelmingly concerned about economic matters, and are far more
concerned about national security than they are about ACC, if they even
mention anything remotely like ACC among their concerns. If
Americans conclude that ACC isn't the great global threat some claim,
then we should elect a government that will wield American oil for the
prosperity and security of the entire world.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

27 March, 2015

The latest "ad hominem" attack from a Warmist below

Even an alleged scientist, Ken Rice of U Edinburgh, just cannot
bear to mention any scientific data about climate. His attack
below on the skeptical Richard Tol in fact presents neither evidence nor
reasoning. It is a pure attack on the man himself. And such
attacks are a classical informal fallacy in logic. They prove
nothing. Where is the data that prove Tol wrong? There is
none -- not a single solitary fact. As any kind of a reply to Tol
it is non-existent. It's probably a reasonable expresion of faith
though

Richard Tol has another article about how claims of a scientific
consensus don’t stand up (you can read it here if you really want to).
It’s the standard message that he’s been promoting for quite some time
now and I really can’t bring myself to point out the flaws again; it’s
just getting tedious. I’m also tired of always being a critic. I thought
I might, instead, try to write something a bit more positive.

I think what Richard has done here is a fantastic example of how
persistence can eventually pay off. If you have some kind of agenda, or a
message you’d like to promote, just be persistent; eventually you will
succeed in getting it out there. It doesn’t really matter if what you’re
saying is strictly correct, or not. It doesn’t really matter if what
you’re saying is balanced and objective, or not. It doesn’t really
matter if what you’re arguing against is something you’ve already
accepted as being true. Just keep going. Eventually you will succeed.

Ignore those who point out your errors and tell you that you’re wrong.
Ignore those who point out that your behaviour leaves much to be
desired. Few people are sufficiently persistent, and so they’ll
eventually just give up. You’ll be left to promote your message, free
from the criticisms of those who would rather your audience were
informed, than misinformed.

Now, there are of course some big caveats. Your message does need to
appeal to some kind of audience, ideally one with some power and
influence. There’s no point doing this if you won’t actually achieve
something. Your message also has to be at least plausible, and you do
need to avoid promoting something that would be obviously objectionable
and/or libelous. Of course, you’ll be reasonably safe from claims of
libel, as most who typically complain about such things would probably
be in your audience, rather than amongst those about whom you’re
writing.

This strategy also isn’t for everyone. If you have any interest in
maintaining some actual credibility, this may not be optimal. If,
however, that doesn’t particularly bother you, then carry on. It can be a
particularly successful strategy, as long as you have suitable
persistence and little interest in what others might think of you.

So, there you go. People think that I can only be a critic, but
sometimes I can see the positives in what those with whom I broadly
disagree are doing. I think Richard is the living embodiment of the
saying if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!. Maybe we could
all learn a lesson from this episode? Maybe this is a strategy worth
considering. On the other hand, if you have any interest in maintaining a
shred of dignity, possibly not. Similarly, if you would like the
strength of your argument to be based on something other than your
critics simply giving up, this may not be for you.

One of the more curious aspects of the climate change debate is that
those who most loudly profess to follow the science don’t act much like
scientists — proposing and persuading — as much as they do ideological
enforcers, shaming and punishing those who disagree.

It’s not my field, but those who argue here — Terrence Corcoran, Rex
Murphy — for alternative views to the advertised consensus are rigorous
thinkers with arguments to be engaged. I try my best to read as a layman
what I am able to grasp about the issue. I have a healthy skepticism,
not so much about climate science, but that the settled science, we are
told, fits together rather too neatly with the agenda of those arguing
for every greater state control of economic life.

Given that the principal global economic priority must be the
development of the poorer nations, and that their people have suffered
far too long from too much government control, I doubt that their
affliction will be ameliorated by a global climate treaty. Which
presents two priorities often presented in moral clothing — the
obligation to alleviate poverty and the proper stewardship of creation.

All of which came to mind reading the letter of resignation of Rajendra
Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
from 2002 to 2015, the UN body which provides the imprimatur of
orthodoxy for climate science. Dr. Pachauri flew as high as it gets in
the climate stratosphere, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of
the IPCC alongside co-winner Al Gore in 2007. Dr. Pachauri resigned last
week after sexual harassment allegations were made in his native India.

About the veracity of the allegations I have no knowledge, but his
letter to the UN secretary-general included this startling confession:
“For me the protection of Planet Earth, the survival of all species and
the sustainability of our ecosystems is more than a mission. It is my
religion and my dharma.”

There are no shortage of Christians who ground their ecological concern
in their theology of creation, and certainly the pantheistic religions
of the east there would provide similar resources. Yet to declare the
care of Earth to be a religion all by itself seems rather careless use
of language.

It is unlikely that Dr. Pachauri actually worships his own work. In any
case, that would be just workaday vanity in the world of celebrity
climate activism, and need not be dressed up in the language of
salvation. Likely what he meant was that he places ecological matters at
the heart of his worldview, evaluates all other data in light of that,
and therefore derives an economic and political program that needs to be
imposed on the global social order.

He likely thinks that is what a religion is. But that is the world of
ideology, not the world of religion, especially not of biblical religion
in the Christian tradition.

Religion is not an ideology, though it can be corrupted to become one.
Religion treats as fixed those points of revelation that have as their
object that which is unchanging, namely God. Yet their application to
the social order precisely requires a response to changing
circumstances, including the insights of other disciplines, including
economics, politics, history and the environmental sciences. That’s why
there is no such thing as Christian tax policy, or trade policy or
climate policy. For example, Christians have it as a matter of divine
revelation that concern for the poor is not optional, but essential. How
to best assist the poor remains a matter of differing circumstances and
consequently competing policy choices.

Religion which presents a complete model of the social order, rooted
only in principles generated from within itself, has in fact become more
of an ideology than a faith open to the truth of the world, both
revealed (theology) and observed (science). That actually sounds more
like the IPCC today than the pulpit.

A hallmark of the post-Enlightenment world has been the denigration of
religious belief as closed-minded by the scientific establishment. There
is no more establishment body than the IPCC. It’s a shame that Dr.
Pachauri left it to his leave-taking to reveal that his own approach is
more close-minded ideology than rational science. A theologian would be
more open-minded.

Climate change, formerly known as global warming, often takes center
stage for Democrats. That’s not true of the electorate, but Democrats
are undeterred. What is astonishing is the degree to which Democrats
will mislead their constituents to grab the reins of power in
Washington, DC.

Take newly elected Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA), who wooed voters by pledging
to address man-made global warming with initiatives like cap and trade.
On Feb. 4, Beyer wrote on his website, “In all, extreme weather events
triggered over $110 billion in losses and almost 7,000 fatalities” in
2014. He reiterated that claim a month later in the Falls Church
News-Press, in which he repeated, “More than 7,000 Americans lost their
lives to climate change-fueled events last year.”

That’s pretty startling. And egregiously wrong. After Beyer’s assertion
received backlash, spokesman Thomas Scanlon attempted to clear the air.
“That number should be globally, not just in the United States,” he told
PolitiFact. “We made an error in editing this column.”

Even still, the claim is deceptive. The statistic (which was actually
7,700) was derived from Germany-based insurer Munich RE, which tallies
“global natural loss event.” According to researcher Peter Hoeppe, “We
do not have the ability to identify the direct impact of global warming
on fatalities caused by natural catastrophes, other than to say any
fatality caused by the earthquake peril are not due to global warming.”

On that note, PolitiFact writes, “Of the 7,700 deaths, Munich RE
estimated 850 were caused by earthquakes. The remaining 6,850 deaths,
the company wrote, were caused by ‘weather-related’ events.”

But the evidence to back Beyer’s claim is essentially nonexistent.
Michael Bastasch of The Daily Caller notes, “The Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change itself says there’s ‘limited evidence of changes in
extremes associated with other climate variables since the mid-20th
century.’” Moreover, Bastasch adds, “Not only has weather not been
getting more ‘extreme’ in the last century, mankind’s ability to
withstand extreme weather events has increased globally. The
International Disaster Database reports that more than 3.5 million
people were killed by natural disasters in the early 1930s when the
world population was about half what it is today. Fast forward to 2014
and only 7,700 people worldwide were killed by natural disasters (which
includes earthquakes), according to Munich Re.”

Any loss of life is a tragic part of the human condition, but 7,000
individuals is a far cry from 3.5 million. We should be thankful for the
protection we have today, largely driven by fossil fuels and other
economic development in the face of ecofascist opposition. But advancing
the climate agenda requires alarmism.

One final note: Beyer made a career owning and operating Volvo, Land
Rover, Kia, Volkswagen and Subaru dealerships. If he sincerely believes
that alleviating “the harmful consequences of global climate change is
the existential crisis of our generation,” as he so adamantly professes,
perhaps he should start by shuttering his fossil fuel-burning,
CO2-belching businesses.

Is it morally permissible to allow “climate deniers” to appear in print and televised media?

Columbia University journalism students wrestled with this question
recently at a screening of the new documentary, “Merchants of Doubt.”
“Merchants,” based on the 2010 book by science historians Naomi Oreskes
and Erik Conway, endeavors to smear skeptics of anthropogenic global
warming as the henchmen of the fossil-fuel industry. The film is light
on evidence, as I show here, but heavy on verve. Director Robert Kenner
(“Food, Inc.”) traces the stories of sly 1950s tobacco reps who hired
scientists to cast doubt on a growing consensus that smoking was
unhealthy. The film’s implication, insinuated rather than demonstrated,
is that global warming doubters are likewise mercenary.

If you buy that argument, then it makes some sense to keep “deniers”
from deluding the public. In a room full of journalism students in
training to ask tough questions and root out the truth, everyone bought
it.

Global Warming Opposition Equals Propaganda

“It is a lie to say that global warming poses no danger,” New York Times
reporter Justin Gillis told the crowd as part of a panel after the
screening. He was responding to a question from the editor of the
Columbia Journalism Review, who had asked him whether news outlets
present a “false balance” when they cite both proponents and skeptics of
anthropogenic global warming. Since the science is “settled,” and
“consensus” has been achieved, why not quote only the proponents?
“Journalists care about the truth—that’s my only care in life, to find
the truth,” Gillis added. “To act as if the evidence is half and half is
to tell a lie. I refuse to perpetuate that lie.”

Wendell Potter from the Huffington Post recommended that newspapers
create a new “propaganda beat” with reporters devoted solely to
unmasking the “deniers” as frauds.
“Accurate information about climate change is a human right,” insisted
Emily Southerd, campaign manager for the advocacy group Forecast the
Facts. “Accurate information” in this case apparently means “consensus”
information. Southerd shared that her organization is petitioning news
stations to quit booking “deniers” like Marc Morano of ClimateDepot.com,
one of the “merchants” shown in the film. Wendell Potter from the
Huffington Post recommended that newspapers create a new “propaganda
beat” with reporters devoted solely to unmasking the “deniers” as
frauds.

It’s hard to take such caviling seriously when the New York Times is
running beguiling hit pieces on respected (but climate-skeptic)
astrophysicist Willie Soon and cheering a McCarthyite investigation into
seven other professors who expressed skepticism towards the idea that
global warming is dangerous and man-made. In the United Kingdom last
summer, after global warming-skeptic Lord Nigel Lawson appeared on the
BBC, the head of the BBC Complaints Unit announced that “minority
opinions and sceptical views should not be treated on an equal footing
with the scientific consensus.” Lawson has not been on the BBC since.

Skeptics are not exactly popular in the media. Gillis acknowledged a
tacit pact among print journalists to stop giving credence to climate
skeptics. He called this an “enlightenment” that began ten or 15 years
ago. American television, he noted, still lets a few skeptics onto the
air; broadcasters have yet to come out of the Dark Ages.

Denying the Deniers

The merits of the term “denier” also got some play among the panelists.
Southerd cast a strong vote in favor of the term: “these people need to
be labeled what they are: climate change deniers.” Gillis explained the
need to maintain the appearance of impartiality. “This is much like the
abortion wars: what term you use signals what side you are on.” His own
preference was to describe the “deniers” as “people who oppose climate
science.” He was adamant, though, that these
opponents-of-climate-science should never be called “skeptics”; all
scientists are professional skeptics, and it would be inappropriate to
honor the climate-doubters with such a term.

Paper trails indicate that federal agencies solicited climate science
research that supported their conclusions, cherry-picked peer reviewers
known to be sympathetic to the pro-global warming cause, and overlooked
conflicts of interest.
One member of the audience thought to ask about the funding for
pro-anthropogenic global warming scientists. What if someone
investigated the money that supports global warming research, and made a
“Merchants of Doubt” sequel about the consensus scientists? An
excellent question, especially since in the last 15 years
pro-sustainability and global warming research has enjoyed nearly $400
million in funding from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); $3
billion from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; $600
million from the National Institutes of Health; $1.7 billion from
National Science Foundation; and even $2 million from the National
Endowment for the Arts.

No worries about that, Gillis responded: “99.9 percent of climate
science is funded by the government.” That means, he explained, that
each grant is disclosed by number to the public, making every
transaction transparent and trustworthy.

But Gillis neglected to explain that studies from two different
organizations have uncovered in this federally-funded research cozenage
and artifice of exactly the sort “Merchants” espies in climate change
doubters. Paper trails indicate that the EPA, the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, and other federal agencies solicited climate
science research that supported their conclusions, cherry-picked peer
reviewers known to be sympathetic to the pro-global warming cause, and
overlooked conflicts of interest by assigning research papers to be
reviewed by members of the same organizations that produced the research
in the first place. In response to concerns such as these, the House of
Representatives is considering the Secret Science Reform Act and the
Science Advisory Board Reform Act to try to bring transparency to the
research these federal agencies use as the basis for their environmental
regulations.

But none of this was relevant, apparently, in an evening’s conversation
about threats to the integrity of climate science. Perhaps such
obstinate belief in the credibility of global warming research should
itself be labeled a kind of doubt-denialism.

The most common chemical used in Australia by farmers and gardeners to
kill weeds “probably” causes cancer, according to the World Health
Organisation.

The finding by the French-based International Agency for Research of
Cancers that the ­active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup — glyphosate —
is likely to be a carcinogen has shocked the agricultural sector.

The multi-weed killer remains approved for safe use in Australia, except
around waterways, and throughout the world. The federal government’s
Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority has not
commented on this week’s WHO finding or decided whether it plans to
review the safety of glyphosate, which makes up the bulk of Australia’s
$1.5 billion annual herbicide sales.

Since its invention by chemical company Monsanto in 1974, glyphosate has
become the most common herbicide sprayed by all farmers worldwide,
usually ­applied after autumn rain and before crops like wheat, barley
and canola are sown to kill weeds.

Monsanto yesterday reacted with “outrage”, accusing the WHO cancer
agency of “agenda- driven bias”. It claimed the ruling was inconsistent
with decades of safety reviews and more than 800 studies showing
glyphosate is safe for human health.

South Australian grain grower Mark Jaensch has been using Roundup and
other cheaper or generic brands of glyphosate on his 500ha of crops for
the past 30 years.

He is about to order another 600 litres of the herbicide today as he
waits for a good autumn break on his Callington farm to signal the start
of new weed growth, spraying time and, finally, crop sowing.

Ironically, his glyphosate chemical use has increased since the 1990s
when he started using new “direct drilling” methods, sowing crop seeds
directly into old stubble beds — without the usual ploughing to control
weeds — in a bid to preserve soil moisture and prevent erosion, topsoil
loss and dust storms.

“I’m reliant on it; we can’t put our crops in without (glyphosate), it would be hard to replace it,” Mr Jaensch said.

“But to be honest, I’m not too worried about this new (WHO warning);
unless something comes out more concrete than ‘probably causes cancer’, I
think it’s just scaremongering — I mean it’s not even classed as a
dangerous poison on the label and you can still buy it in a spray can
from the supermarket.”

Mr Jaensch said the chief difference from the 30 years ago was that he
was now a better and safer user of herbicides such as Roundup.

His big tractor with its air-conditioned cab has charcoal filters to
prevent him breathing sprayed chemicals, laws are much stricter about
under what weather and wind conditions herbicides can be used, and most
farmers now must undertake a safe chemical course before being able to
buy products.

IARC report co-author and glyphosate expert Kate Guyton said the new
finding of “probable carcinogen” was based on existing evidence from
multiple studies of the effects of glyphosate on male agricultural and
forestry occupational workers.

She said the report stopped short of saying the chemical conclusively
caused cancer, or how much exposure would trigger cancer, but did find
that scientists know people exposed to glyphosate in their daily jobs
experienced a higher incidence of non-Hodgkin lymphoma than those not
exposed to the chemical.

Other studies have found that glyphosate leads to DNA and chromosomal damage in laboratory animals, which can lead to cancer.

“I don’t think home use is the issue; it’s [in] agricultural use this
will have the biggest impact,” Dr Guyton said. “For the moment,
it’s just something for people to be conscious of.”

A recent study by the Australian Centre for Agricultural Health and
Safety and the University of Sydney found the incidence of cancer is
lower in farmers, than in the general population, despite having the
highest level of exposure to pesticides.

Federal Agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce said today he would seek
advice from the government’s Australian Pesticides and Veterinary
Medicines Authority on whether the safety of glyphosate use needed to be
reviewed.

But Mr Joyce did not appear overly worried by the new World Health
Organisation “probable carcinogen” warning. “A literature review
of existing research suggests there is limited evidence that potentially
links glyphosate with cancer,” Mr Joyce said.

“We propose to seek advice from the APVMA whether, on balance, the
position has changed [but] this [IARC finding] would appear to be a
re-identification of a small number of old research papers.”

“Businesses that sell to foreign markets put more people to work in
high-quality jobs, offering more Americans the chance to earn a decent
wage,” claimed the Obama administration’s Secretary of Commerce Penny
Pritzker in a March 18 Wall Street Journal (WSJ) opinion piece.

She makes a strong case for U.S. exports: “jobs in export-intensive
industries pay up to 18 percent more than jobs not related to exports.”
Her premise is: “The U.S. economy ended 2014 on the uptick, and exports
added to the momentum.” Noticeably absent is any mention of the
potential for “high-quality jobs” and economic “uptick” that would come
from the export of America’s abundant oil-and-natural gas resources —
something an executive order could expedite; something her office could
champion.

Pritzker states: “From large enterprises and multinational corporations
to small startups and local manufacturers, an increasing number of
businesses are realizing that their customer base is no longer around
the corner, but around the world. They understand that 95 percent of the
world’s customers live outside the U.S., and to succeed in the 21st
century, they must find a way to reach consumers in ever-expanding
markets.” Penny, this is especially true for American energy!

Due to the modern technologies of horizontal drilling and hydraulic
fracturing — developed and refined within our borders — the U.S. is
producing more oil and natural gas than in decades. So much that we are
nearly out of places to store it. We know how to produce it safely and
cheaply. But, unlike the airplanes Pritkzer’s co-author Jim McNerney,
CEO of Boeing Co., builds, the oil-and-gas industry is prevented from
sending its abundance to “foreign markets” — including our allies in
Europe who are dependent on energy from a source that uses it as a
weapon against them.

The same day WSJ published Pritzker’s piece, it featured a news story
announcing: “some of the world’s biggest oil companies are starting to
give up” on “hydraulic fracturing wildcatting in Europe, Russia and
China.” This, despite the fact: “Eastern European officials who were
eager to wean their nations off of Russian gas welcomed the explorers.”
It explains: “Wells in Poland and China can cost up to $25 million each,
while American wells on average cost about $5 million” — resulting in
overseas costs to produce a barrel of shale oil that are higher than
what it can be sold for with the current world-wide low prices.

In trade negotiations, the U.S., according to the New York Times (NYT),
“typically argues that countries with excess supplies should export
them.” We have excess supplies of both crude oil and natural gas that
has driven down prices — resulting in “trouble for an industry that has
done much to keep the national economy afloat in recent years.” We
“should export them”—but we aren’t.

“Why can’t we export crude oil and natural gas?” you might ask —
especially when the U.S. can export refined petroleum products such as
gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. The NYT explains: “In 2011, the country
pivoted from being the world’s largest importer of petroleum products to
becoming one of the leading exporters.” At that point, for the first
time in 21 years, refined petroleum became our number one export product
— though Pritzker never mentioned that.

The “energy world changed.” But, as NYT points out, exports could soak
up the excess production, “but there are still political hurdles.”

For crude oil, the problem is energy policy enacted before the “energy
world changed.” Signed into law in 1975, after the 1973 Arab oil embargo
shook the U.S. with high oil prices, the goal of the Energy Policy and
Conservation Act, according to the International Business Times, was “to
stifle the impact of future oil embargos by foreign oil producing
countries.” The result was a ban on most U.S. oil exports — though some
exceptions can be made and the Commerce Department has recently given
export licenses to two companies for particular types of oil. The WSJ
reports: “Ten companies have applied for similar ruling to export oil.”

For natural gas exports, the problem is two-fold. Exporting natural gas
is not prohibited, but it is not encouraged or made easy. In order to
export natural gas, it must be converted into Liquefied Natural Gas
(LNG) — which is done at multibillion-dollar facilities with long lead
times for permitting and construction that require purchase contracts to
back up financing. Many potential customers for U.S. LNG are non-Free
Trade Agreement (FTA) countries. Currently, Breaking Energy (BE)
reports, “the Department of Energy (DOE) has issued five final and four
conditional approvals for LNG export to non-FTA countries.” The
Financial Times says about two dozen U.S. LNG export facilities have
been proposed with four “already under construction, which have
contracts to back up their financing.” Last month, according to Reuters,
looking to reduce dependence on supplies from Russia, Lithuania signed
an agreement to purchase LNG from the U.S.’s first export terminal:
Cheniere Energy Inc.’s Sabine Pass, which is expected to send its first
cargoes by the end of this year.

Fortunately, as I predicted in November, there are fixes in the works
that, as energy historian Daniel Yergin said, symbolize “a new era in
U.S. energy and U.S. energy relations with the rest of the world.”

In January, Senators John Barrasso (R-WY) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM)
introduced the LNG Permitting Certainty and Transparency Act to expedite
DOE decisions on LNG export applications. It specifically requires a
decision on any LNG export application within 45 days after the
environmental review document for the project is published. Currently,
applications to export natural gas to non-FTA countries require the
Secretary of Energy to make a public interest determination which
includes a public comment period. Not surprisingly, “environmental
groups are lobbying the Obama Administration to veto the bill.” BE
states: “The bipartisan bill could garner enough votes to gain a
filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.”

A month later, Representative Joe Barton (R-TX), along with 14
co-sponsors, introduced a bill to end the crude oil export ban: HR 702.
On March 25, the House Foreign Affairs Committee will meet to debate and
vote on the bill — though its passage is not as optimistic as the LNG
bill. Bloomberg sees that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are
weary, fearing “that they’d be blamed if gasoline prices climb after the
ban is lifted.” Oil producers support lifting the ban, while refiners
oppose it.

In October, David Goldwyn, the State Department’s coordinator for
international energy affairs in the first Obama administration, said:
“The politics are hard.” He added: “When the economics become
overwhelming the politics will shift.” The NYT stated: The telltale sign
of a glut will be a collapse in the West Texas Intermediate (WTI)
price, the principal American oil benchmark, which is currently [October
2014] about $3 below the world Brent price.” It continues, “If the
spread cracks open, the economic arguments for free export of domestic
crude will probably win the day.”

That day may have come. On March 13, the WSJ editorial board announced:
“WTI now trades 20 percent below the world market price.” Holman
Jenkins, who writes the Business World column for the WSJ, says: “Oil
producers are already being denied a premium of $12 a barrel by not
being allowed to export this oil.” Thomas Tunstall, research director at
the University of Texas at San Antonio’s Institute for Economic
Development, reported: “Before the rapid increase in U.S. oil and gas
production, WTI historically sold at a slight premium to Brent,
typically about $1-$3 per barrel.”

“U.S. pump prices are mainly tied to the price of Brent crude, which is
freely traded on the world market and is higher than it might otherwise
be because of the ban on U.S. exports,” explains the WSJ. “If U.S.
producers were allowed to compete globally, prices of Brent and WTI
would converge over time, and U.S. gasoline prices would come down, all
things being equal.”

Now, the “industry that has done much to keep the national economy
afloat” is in trouble. There have been some 74,000 layoffs in the U.S.
oil patch since November.

If Congress could muster up the political will to lift the arcane oil
export ban, the U.S. could emerge as a major world exporter, which
according to the NYT, would result in the “return to a status that
helped make the country a great power in the first half of the 20th
century.” Yergin adds: “Economically, it means that money that was
flowing out of the United States into sovereign wealth funds and
treasuries around the world will now stay in the U.S. and be invested in
the U.S., creating jobs. It doesn’t change everything, but it certainly
provides a new dimension to U.S. influence in the world.”

Pritzker brags that the Commerce Department has “worked with the private
sector to help businesses reach customers overseas; … to open new
markets for U.S. goods and services; to reform the export-control
process; and to overcome barriers to entry.” For U.S. oil-and-gas
producers the biggest barrier to reaching customers overseas and opening
up new markets is our own energy policy — something the administration
and Congress have taken steps to fix. According to Bloomberg, if they
knew the public was with them, lawmakers could easily save American jobs
and investment, lower gasoline prices, help balance our trade deficit,
aid our allies, and increase U.S. influence in the world.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

26 March, 2015

More stupid speculation and bad data from some arch-Warmists

The data behind the claim below is totally corrupt, almost hilariously so, (See here) but even if it were immaculate the inferences drawn below from it would still be very questionable

The
North Atlantic meridional overturning circulation is not well
understood and attributing a change in it to global warming is pure
speculation. Rahmstorf is an oceanographer so he should be
particularly ashamed at lending his name to this. But, then again,
he claims that observed average temperature differences of a few
HUNDREDTHS of a degree mean something, even though they are not even
statistically significant.

And attributing changes in such
a vast body of water to a temperature rise of less than one degree
Celsius is on the face of it improbable anyhow

The Gulf Stream, the ocean current that brings mild weather to northern
Europe and balmy conditions to the south east of the US, is slowing at
its fastest rate in 1,000 years.

New research has revealed that the enormous currents that circulate warm
and cold water around the Atlantic ocean has slowed by 15-20 per cent
over the past century.

Scientists say that the increasing flow of fresh water from melting Greenland ice sheets may be driving the slowdown.

Professor Stefan Rahmstorf, an oceans physicist at the Potsdam Institute
for Climate Impact Research, said: 'It is conspicuous that one specific
area in the North Atlantic has been cooling in the past hundred years
while the rest of the world heats up.

'Now we have detected strong evidence that the global conveyor has
indeed been weakening in the past hundred years, particularly since
1970.

The findings suggest that as global temperatures rise due to climate
change, areas that are warmed by the Gulf Stream could see temperatures
fall, particularly in the winter. [Warming causes cooling, once again]

The Gulf Stream is a powerful current that forms part of the North Atlantic meridional overturning circulation.

This is a system of currents that are driven by the rising and sinking of water in different regions of the Atlantic.

Warm water from the equator is driven north towards the Artic where it
cools, increases in salinity and sinks to the ocean depths.

This drives deep sea currents that pump water back to the equator, where
it is warmed, rising to the surface and feeding the currents towards
the pole.

In the Arctic, cold salty water sinks to the ocean depths, driving deep
sea currents down to the equator where warmer water then rises to the
surface and feeds the Gulf Stream.

The influx of warm water from the equator, which travels up through the
Gulf of Mexico, past Maine and then up the west side of Britain and
Norway, helps to warm weather systems in Northern Europe.

It makes winter conditions in much of northern Europe far milder than
they normally would be, keeping Britain and the west coast of Norway
largely snow and ice free through the winter months.

The researchers, whose study is published in the journal Nature Climate
Change, found that the sea in the northern Atlantic is colder than
predicted by computer models. [What? Another model failure?]

They estimate that 8,000 cubic kilometres of fresh melt water haver
flowed into the northern Atlantic from Greenland's icesheets between
1900 and 1970.

This fresh water is less dense than the salty water of the ocean and
tends to float on the surface, disturbing the balance that causes cold
water to sink in that region.

Usually freezing sea ice in the arctic causes the salinity of the ocean
water to increase and so become more dense. Adding fresh water dilutes
this effect.

Using recent sea surface and atmospheric temperature data, along with
data from ice-cores, tree rings and sediments, they found that the
changes in the ocean currents are unprecedented since the year 900AD.

However, the researchers also found that the cooling above the Northern
Atlantic may also help to slightly reduce the effect of warming on the
continents due to climate change.

They warn, however, that if the circulation weakens too much it could even break down completely. [How?]

Professor Jason Box, from the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, said it appeared man-made climate change was responsible for the slow down of the Gulf Stream and may worsen as global temperatures increase.

He said: 'The human-caused mass loss of the Greenland ice sheet appears
to be slowing down the Atlantic overturning – and this effect might
increase if temperatures are allowed to rise further.'

Once again Warmists are abusing the messenger rather than discussing
the facts. And they attempt to link only two individual climate skeptics
to racism. So even if all they say is true and relevant, they
have no statistically sound basis for any generalization. A sample
of two is most unlikely to yield accurate generalizations. It would
certainly fail a test of statistical significance. Two swallows
don't make a summer any more than one does. So the post below is
yet another example of the low intellectual level behind most Warmist
writing

Famously climate denying Senator Ted Cruz announced for President this week.

Above, see Senator Cruz’s extravagant praise for one of the
20th century’s most prominent Southern racist segregationists, Jesse
Helms. There’s a little well-documented history there for those too
young to remember.

I’ve posted before on the link between racism and climate change denial,
and I’ve noted that Senator Jim Inhofe is to climate denial as Strom
Thurmond was to civil rights. Both clung to outmoded and terribly
destructive irrational prejudice, long beyond what reason would dictate.
Even Thurmond softened his racial rhetoric in later years – while
Inhofe has grown only more bombastic and shrill.

Here is yet another example, in Senator Cruz open admiration for Jesse
Helms. Maybe there’s an answer to this in the way the denialist brain
functions, that’s an area for further research.

Dozens of climate scientists and environmental groups are calling for
museums of science and natural history to “cut all ties” with fossil
fuel companies and philanthropists like the Koch brothers.

A letter released on Tuesday asserts that such money is tainted by these
donors’ efforts to deny the overwhelming scientific consensus on
climate change.

“When some of the biggest contributors to climate change and funders of
misinformation on climate science sponsor exhibitions in museums of
science and natural history, they undermine public confidence in the
validity of the institutions responsible for transmitting scientific
knowledge,” the letter states. “This corporate philanthropy comes at too
high a cost.”

The letter does not mention specific companies, but it does name David
H. Koch, who sits on the boards of the American Museum of Natural
History in New York and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural
History and has given tens of millions of dollars to those
institutions....

....Chris Norris, a paleontologist and prominent blogger on museum
issues, warned that if museums started removing board members or turning
down donations, they risked damaging their reputations for objectivity.
Doing so, he added, would enable “others to argue that the information
they provide is partisan and not to be trusted.”

Fossil Fuel Divestment Activists Could Stand in the way of any Transition to Cleaner Energy

Nobody is likely to confuse tiny Brevard College in North Carolina,
student population about 700, with the University of California system,
with 233,000 students on 10 sprawling campuses. But they have at least
one thing in common: Students and faculty members think they can help
"save the planet" if their schools stop investing in companies that
recover and process fossil fuels.

Faculty, students, and alumni from 17 schools, including Dartmouth,
Georgetown, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford, and the
University of Pennsylvania, have even created a donor-advised
divestment fund to pressure their universities "to do the right thing
and divest from fossil fuels." When a school complies, it will receive
the donations and earnings given in its name.

Though the school is not a member of this "Fossil Free Divestment Fund,"
Brevard's trustees recently fell in line, voting to purge such stocks
from the school's $25 million endowment.

While those promoting divestment on college campuses clearly believe in
their cause, what they don't appear to understand is that divestment
could actually slow America's transition to nonpolluting energy.

As Lisa Jackson, President Obama's first Environmental Protection Agency
administrator, made clear in her July 2009 testimony to the Senate
Environment and Public Works Committee, U.S. action on climate change
would have no impact on average global temperature if emissions in
China, India, and the European Union continue to rise.

If the United States acting alone on climate change would have no
practical impact, how much of an impact do you think the symbolic
gesture of a few universities (or even a lot of universities) tinkering
with their investment portfolios would have?

However, while divestment would have a negligible impact on climate
change, it could have an impact on university earnings. That, in turn,
could slow efforts to reduce the world's reliance on fossil fuels.

According to the National Association of College and University Business
Officers, roughly $22 billion in university funds are invested in
energy and natural-resource companies, about 5 percent of all university
assets.

Harvard President Drew Faust, whose students staged a sit-in recently in
support of divestment, observes that endowments are a "resource, not an
instrument to impel social or political change."

Consider the University of California. In its wide-flung system, tens of
thousands of students commute to class each day, so there's a practical
side to the question as well. But there's also the matter of the
reported $91 billion portfolio the chief investment officer manages,
which helps fund academics, operations, pensions, research, and
scholarships.

This is where divestment activists allow ideology to get in the way of practicality.

Universities already are on the cutting edge of technological advances
that could help reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Divestment would hinder
those efforts.

Robert Stavins, a professor of business and government at Harvard's
Kennedy School and a lead author in three rounds of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says, "The real contributions
of great universities to the fight against climate change will be
through our products: research, teaching, and outreach to policy-makers.
That is how we have made a difference on other societal challenges, and
it is how we will make a real difference on this one."

While the vote by Brevard College's trustees may make students feel
good, what divestment on a large scale could do is reduce the amount of
money universities have to finance serious environmental research.

A bad idea at the best of times, selling oil and gas stocks in today's
world of fossil-fuel abundance is an even worse idea. Crude oil prices
have fallen dramatically during the past year, and the share prices of
U.S. oil companies have followed the market down. Buying "high" and
selling "low" is never a wise investment strategy - not for individual
investors, not for institutions, and not for colleges and universities.

Universities can help chart America's energy future. But they can do
this best in the classroom and laboratory, not by dumping their energy
investments - especially at a loss.

The seasonally adjusted electricity price index climbed to a new record
of 213.009 in February, up from 212.290 in January and from 206.404 a
year ago.

The average price for a KWH of electricity—at 13.8 cents—was also the highest it has ever been in the month of February.

Electricity prices have not always risen in the United States. The
Bureau of Labor Statistics’ annual electricity price index, which
measures the price of electricity relative to a baseline of 100, was
45.5 in 1913. By 1947, it had dropped to 26.6. By 1974, it had risen to
only 44.1—meaning electricity was relatively less expensive in 1974 than
it had been in 1913.

Electricity Price Index-February

Generation of electricity peaked in the United States in 2007, when the
nation produced 4,156,745 million KWH of electricity, according the
Energy Department’s Monthly Energy Review.

So far, the Department of Energy has only reported the electricity
generation numbers for the first eleven months of 2014 (through
November). But in those eleven months, the nation produced 3,748,649
million KWH of electricity, which is less than the 3,812,783 million KWH
produced in the first eleven months of 2007.

That means the U.S. produced 64,134 million KWH less electricity--or
1.68 percent less--in the first eleven months of 2014 than it did in the
first eleven months of 2007. At the same, according to Census Bureau
estimates, the population of the United States grew from 301,621,157 in
July 2007 to 318,857,056 in July 2014.

There has been a particularly dramatic decline in amount of electricity
produced by coal in the United States since 2007. In the first eleven
months of that year, the U.S. produced 1,845,881 million KWH of
electricity using coal, according to the Monthly Energy Review. In the
first eleven months of 2014, it produced 1,463,297 million KWH of
electricity using coal. That is a decline of 382,584 million KWHs or
20.7 percent.

Average Price of KWH by Month

Increased production of electricity using solar and wind sources has not
made up for the decline in coal power. In the first eleven months of
2007, the U.S. produced 550 million KWH using solar and 17,811 million
KWH using wind—for a combined total of 18,361 million KWH for solar and
wind.

In the first eleven months of 2014 that had increased to 17,360 million
KWH using solar and 167,044 million KWH using wind for a combined
solar-wind total of 184,404 million KWH from solar and wind—an increase
from 2007 of 166,043 million KWH in solar and wind power.

That made up for only 43.4 percent of the lost production from coal.

Through November, the 184,404 million KWH of electricity produced in the
United States using solar and wind equaled only 4.9 percent of the
3,748,649 million KWH electricity produced in the country in the first
eleven months of 2014.

Data released by the BLS today also showed that the average price for a
kilowatt hour (KWH) of electricity was 13.8 cents in February. That is
the same as the average price in January of this year, but the highest
price ever recorded for a February.

The average price for a KWH of electricity tends to hit its annual peak
in the summer, decline in fall, hit its low point in winter and rise in
spring. In July through November of 2012, the average price for a KWH
was less than it had been in July through November of 2011. But in 2013
and 2014, the average price for a KWH set a monthly record in every
month of the year. January and February of 2015 have continued that
trend—with the average price of a KWH setting monthly records.

Annual Electricity Price Index

In June, July and August of 2014, the average price of a KWH hit an all-time record of 14.3 cents.

While electricity prices have been climbing to new records in the United
States over the past two years, that has not been the case with other
sources of energy. The price indexes for gasoline and fuel oil have
declined dramatically over the past year—although they did increase from
January to February.

“The energy index rose 1.0 percent in February, ending a series of seven
consecutive declines,” said the BLS in its monthly summary of the
Consumer Price Index. “The gasoline index turned up after a series of
sharp declines, rising 2.4 percent. (Before seasonal adjustment,
gasoline prices rose 5.3 percent in February.) The fuel oil index also
increased after recent declines, rising 1.9 percent. The electricity
index rose 0.3 percent in February after a 0.9-percent increase in
January. The only major energy component index to fall in February was
natural gas, which declined 2.0 percent following a 3.4-percent decrease
the prior month. Despite the February increases, the gasoline and fuel
oil indexes have declined sharply over the past year, falling 32.8
percent and 31.2 percent, respectively. The index for natural gas has
also declined over the past year, falling 6.5 percent, but the
electricity index has increased 3.2 percent.”

The overall seasonally adjusted price index went up only 0.2 percent in
February. "Over the last 12 months," said the BLS, "the all items index
was unchanged before seasonal adjustment."

Hypocrisy Alert: Obama Signs Executive Order To Lead On Climate Change

The week following the Obama’s taking two separate planes to Los
Angeles, President Obama signed an executive order that will mandate the
federal government to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent from
2008 levels.

The President is committed to addressing the climate change threat –
both by taking action here at home and showing leadership on the world
stage. As part of his commitment to lead by example to curb the
emissions that are driving climate change, today President Obama will
issue an Executive Order that will cut the Federal Government’s
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 40 percent over the next decade from 2008
levels — saving taxpayers up to $18 billion in avoided energy costs —
and increase the share of electricity the Federal Government consumes
from renewable sources to 30 percent. Complementing this effort, several
major Federal suppliers are announcing commitments to cut their own GHG
emissions.

Today, the Administration is hosting a roundtable that will bring some
of these large Federal suppliers together to discuss the benefits of
their GHG reduction targets or to make their first-ever corporate
commitments to disclose emissions and set new reduction goals.

Obama’s plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions supports the climate change
agreement he made with China where the president committed the U.S. to
lower emissions between 26 to 28 percent below 2005 amounts by 2025.

The federal government will meet part of its emission reductions by
using more clean energy and increasing the use of electric vehicles.

Unsurprisingly, Obama did not make any personal commitments to cut back on his family’s use of air travel to save the planet.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

25 March, 2015

Another blast from the past -- via Steve Goddard

40 years ago, the National Academy of Sciences wanted to evacuate 6 million people to save them from global cooling.

Climate change will allegedly make food TASTE bad: Global warming will lead to tougher meat and flavourless carrots

It's all Warmist theory-based prophecy. Karoly is an old
shell-backed Warmist. And we know how good Warmist prophecies are

But
let me mention some facts instead. If warming is bad for flavour,
fruit from the Tropics should be insipid. But I grew up in the
tropics and I can assure you that tropical fruit are yummy:
Pawpaws and mangoes are of course well-known but there are also
Granadillas, Soursops, Custard apples and other fruit which are little
known because they do not travel well -- but which are very tasty
indeed. If you've never eaten Granadilla and ice-cream, you
haven't lived. And the sad things called pawpaws outside the
tropics are nowhere nearly as good as pawpaws straight off the
tree.

As for any overall shortage of food being caused by
warming, that is utter nonsense. Plantlife flourishes in warm
climates like nowhere else. It almost leaps out and grabs you at
times in the tropics

For those hoping global warming will bring more opportunities for a
summer barbecue, there may be disappointment ahead - climate change is
likely to make steaks and burgers far less appetising.

In a major report on the impact of global warming on food, scientists
have concluded that the quality of many meats and vegetables is due to
decline at temperatures increase.

The researchers predict that as heatwaves become more common, steaks and
other meats are likely to become stringier and tougher - putting the
traditional barbecue at risk.

Popular vegetables like carrots are also likely to become less flavoursome and have a less pleasant texture.

Potatoes are likely to suffer far more from blight, which rots the tubers and makes them inedible.

Onions could get smaller if temperatures early in the season increase
while fruit and nut trees in some regions may not get cold enough to
signal fruit development.

The report, produced by scientists at the University of Melbourne, also
warned that milk yields could decrease by up to 10-25 per cent as
heatwaves grow more common.

Lower levels of grain production could also hit dairy cattle, meaning
their milk contains less protein, which would result in poorer quality
cheese.

Professor Richard Eckard, director of the primary industries climate
challenges centre at the University of Melbourne, said: 'It’s definitely
a wake up call when you hear that the toast and raspberry jam you have
for breakfast, for example, might not be as readily available in 50
years time.

'Or that there may be changes to the cost and taste of food items we
love and take for granted like avocado and vegemite, spaghetti
bolognaise and even beer, wine and chocolate.

'It makes you appreciate that global warming is not a distant phenomenon
but a very real occurrence that is already affecting the things we
enjoy in our everyday lives, including the most common of foods we eat
for breakfast, lunch and dinner.'

The scientists assessed the impact of the changing climate on 55 foods grown in Australia and other parts of the world.

It predicted that as weather conditions get warmer, with heatwaves and
other extreme events increasing in frequency, agricultural production
will be hit hard.

The cost of apples could rise as farmers try to combat damage from
extreme temperatures on fruits like apples by using shade cloths.

Heat stress will have a particular impact on meat production with cattle
and chickens suffering in higher temperatures and affecting their
appetite.

This will mean meat is likely to be be tougher and more stingy.

Pigs could have particular problems in the heat as they do not possess sweat glands.

Avocados are also likely to get smaller in warmer temperatures as the
plants get stressed while the trees themselves will flower far less.

Temperatures above 27 degrees can cause beetroot flowering stems to grow
early and result in smaller bulbs, while the vegetable can also lose
some of its distinctive red colouring in warmer temperatures.

Professor David Karoly, an atmospheric scientists at the University of
Melbourne and one of the co-authors of the report, said countries like
Australia, where drought is already a major problem, are likely to be
worse hit.

He said: 'Global warming is increasing the frequency and intensity of
heatwaves and bushfires affecting farms across southern and eastern
Australia, and this will get much worse in the future if we don’t act.

'It’s a daunting thought when you consider that Australian farms produce 93% of the food we eat.'

Some dubious thinking from South Africa. When you read the article,
it turns out that what they mean is: because the ESKOM utility company
raised the tariffs by 25.3%, now more people will be using solar energy.
Because it may be cheaper to opt out of the grid

Eskom plans to increase electricity tariffs by up to 25.3%, could mean
that homeowners and businesses are increasingly using solar power.

Janine Myburgh, president of the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry,
said yesterday that its tariffs are becoming more expensive, while
increasingly becoming more affordable to use solar power.

The underlying problem is that Eskom is selling less electricity than a
decade ago. Almost a quarter of Eskom's power stations do not generate
power because of maintenance or because something was wrong, said
Myburgh.

"The less electricity supplied by Eskom, the more shrinkage income from
power sales. Eskom to try to solve this by increasing electricity
tariffs, but now Eskom is becoming increasingly expensive, while solar
power becoming more affordable. "

Eskom's biggest problem is its expenses. Last year it was
calculated that Eskom's coal accounts for the increase in the six years
to 2014 to R19 billion to R70 billion per year. In this period
the utility increased its number of employees from 11,515 to
46,919, Myburgh said.

"Eskom's expenses rise, therefore, while power sales drop. Eskom has a
big problem with the productivity of its employees and maintenance that
is not done. "

Myburgh said the Eskom dilemma has also had a positive result. Green and
renewable energy is becoming increasingly popular as people are forced
to use solar panels and solar water heaters to avoid the constantly
rising utility rates.

Chris Haw, managing director of Future Energy Sola, who constructed
among others the roof-top solar power system at the Black River Park
office complex in Observatory, explained solar power is a way to avoid
the expensive Eskom.

When the owner of a building decided to invest in solar energy, there is
a fixed expense to its budget because the solar power system is
guaranteed for 25 years.

Businesses that have mostly energy needs through the day may fit well
with solar energy, making it a good choice to be more independent of
Eskom.

SOURCE (Translated from Afrikaans by John Ray with a lot of help from Google Translate)

Radical environmentalism’s death campaigns

Its anti-DDT war is a lethal “death-rate solution” imposed on Third World countries

Paul Driessen

The terms racism, white supremacy, crimes against humanity are bandied
about so often that they have become almost meaningless. But they are
absolutely appropriate in an arena where they are too rarely applied:
radical environmentalism’s campaigns that perpetuate poverty, disease
and death, by denying Earth’s most impoverished and powerless people
access to modern life-saving technologies.

Imagine activist groups preventing you from having your child vaccinated
against polio or hepatitis, or from starting her on chemotherapy for
leukemia – because they are “concerned” about “possible side-effects”
and the “ethics” of permitting such “risky” procedures. Absurd! you say.
Outrageous!

Of course it is. But that is what radical environmentalists are doing to
Third World countries. By denying people access to abundant, reliable,
affordable electricity, modern fertilizers and biotech seeds, and
especially DDT to prevent malaria and other insect-borne diseases, they
are killing millions every year.

Many of my articles have documented this. Now a new film written,
self-financed and produced by Dr. D. Rutledge Taylor, MD graphically
presents powerful new evidence of how the Audubon Society, Sierra Club,
other predominantly white environmentalist pressure groups and the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency conspired to hide and discredit
scientific evidence, and wage a campaign of disinformation and outright
lies, to ban the most effective weapon yet devised to prevent malaria
and other vicious diseases.

3 Billion and Counting: The death toll is mounting shows how DDT was
invented on the eve of World War II and became a secret weapon that kept
Allied soldiers on the battlefield, instead of in hospitals or graves.
After the war, it was sprayed on millions of Europeans to prevent
typhus. It then eradicated malaria in Europe, the United States and
other developed nations. No one ever got sick from DDT.

Available on demand and through Amazon.com, You Tube, Google Play,
iTunes and elsewhere, the film chronicles how Rachel Carson’s wildly
inaccurate book Silent Spring helped persuade the Audubon Society to
launch the Environmental Defense Fund for the sole purpose of demanding a
DDT ban.

Why would Audubon do such a thing? Its own research and Department of
the Interior studies showed that bird and animal populations were
exploding during the two decades when DDT was used most widely.
Countless other studies documented that the life-saving chemical was
safe for humans and most wildlife, including bald eagles. People
actually tried to kill themselves with DDT – and repeatedly failed.

An EPA scientific panel conducted six months of hearings, compiled 9,312
pages of studies and testimony, and concluded that DDT was safe and
effective, was not carcinogenic, and should not be banned. Nevertheless,
without attending a single hour of hearings or reading a single page of
the panel’s report, EPA Administrator William Ruckelshaus banned U.S.
production and use of DDT in 1972 – at a time when over 80% of the
chemical was being exported for disease control.

Then why the attacks? As EDF scientist Charles Wurster said 1969, “If
the environmentalists win on DDT, they will achieve a level of authority
they have never had before.” When asked later how he justified human
deaths from pesticides that replaced DDT, versus the “mere loss of some
birds,” he said “organophosphates act locally and only kill farm
workers, and most of them are Mexicans and Negroes.”

Ruckelshaus said he had a political problem, and fixed it. He never
considered the plight of malaria victims, and anti-DDT activists still
ignore their agony and deaths. Audubon, EDF, Sierra Club, Greenpeace,
World Wildlife Fund, Pesticide Action Network, Natural Resource Defense
Council and other radical groups that oppose DDT just don’t give a damn –
even as they have become filthy, callously rich by opposing the
life-saving chemical and other technologies.

Sierra Club executive director David Brower, Population Bomb author Paul
Ehrlich and other arch-environmentalists believed the biggest problem
facing Planet Earth was “uncontrolled growth” in human populations.
Ehrlich argued that the “instant death control” provided by DDT exports
was “responsible for the drastic lowering of death rates” in
underdeveloped countries. Those countries were not practicing a “birth
rate solution” – and thus needed to have “death rate solutions” imposed
on them, via campaigns against energy, Golden Rice and other biotech
crops, and especially DDT.

Almost 3.5 billion people worldwide are at risk of getting this horrific
disease, 207 million are actually infected every year, and over 800,000
die year after year from malaria. The vast majority are children and
pregnant women, and some 90% of them are in Sub-Saharan Africa. In that
region, a child still dies every minute from malaria, and most African
children have been brain-damaged to some degree by malaria. Worldwide,
nearly 80% of all infectious diseases are spread by insects.

Malaria is certainly a disease of poverty. But poverty is a disease of
malaria. It leaves victims too sick to work or care for their families,
for weeks on end. Medicines and hospital stays drain families’ meager
savings. The disease costs tens of millions of lost work hours, billions
in lost wages, and tens of billions for medicines and care in
antiquated hospitals. It leaves entire nations impoverished.

However, spraying small amounts of DDT on the walls and eaves of
cinderblock and mud-and-thatch homes, once or twice a year puts a
long-lasting mosquito net over entire households. It keeps 80-90% of
mosquitoes from even entering the homes; irritates any that do enter, so
they leave without biting; and kills any that land. No other chemical,
at any price, can do all this.

In response to these facts, anti-DDT pressure groups rail about risks
that are trivial, illusory or fabricated. DDT is associated with low
birth-weights, slow reflexes and weakened immune systems in babies, and
could cause premature birth and lactation failure in nursing mothers,
they claim.

Not one peer-reviewed scientific study supports any of this
fear-mongering. Every one of these alleged problems is definitely
associated with malaria and other endemic Third World diseases. And
compared to the death and devastation that DDT could prevent, the
alleged DDT risks are irrelevant.

However, constant deception and harassment by these groups have caused
many health agencies and aid organizations to not use or fund DDT, and
often other pesticides. Instead, they focus on bed nets, education,
“capacity building,” and treatment with drugs that are too often
unavailable, counterfeit, or ineffective because the malaria parasites
have become resistant to them.

Still, the efforts have been somewhat successful. Millions of women and
young children now sleep under insecticide-treated nets. Millions now
get diagnosed more quickly and receive better care and medicines, often
at clinics where two doctors examine up to 400 patients a day. In 2010,
the World Health Organization and Roll Back Malaria boasted of an 18%
reduction in child mortality, compared with 2000.

But that is not nearly good enough. We would never tolerate 18% as “good
enough,” if American or European children’s lives (or Greenpeace and
EDF kids’ lives) were at stake and a 90% reduction were possible – as it
would be, if health workers were also eradicating mosquitoes and
spraying DDT.

Instead, they protect Africans and Asians from minimal or illusory
risks, by condemning them to agonizing deaths from readily preventable
diseases. “They are using us in anti-DDT experiments,” says Ugandan
human rights activist Fiona Kobusingye. “They are playing with our
lives.”

They are also playing with American lives. Spraying clothes with DDT
once a year would keep infected ticks away and prevent Lyme disease that
leaves tens of thousands battling chronic, debilitating pain and
illness for years, Dr. Taylor explains. But the same anti-pesticide
radicals are dead-set against that.

Dr. Taylor ends his film by drinking 3 grams of DDT … in 2008 – with no ill effects, then or today.

Watch 3 Billion and Counting. Then contact these Big Green pressure
groups and their staffs and board members, and the foundations,
politicians and bureaucrats who support them. Tell them it’s time to end
their eco-manslaughter.

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A
Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org), author of Eco-Imperialism:
Green power - Black death, and coauthor of Cracking Big Green: Saving
the world from the Save-the-Earth money machine. He is a featured expert
in 3 Billion and Counting.

Via email

Feds To Block FEMA Funds For States That Deny Man-Made Global Warming

Well, there’s one way to ensure that everyone buys into the man-made
global warming hoax: extortion. Starting next year the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) will stop funds from going to states that
refuse to believe that humans are causing climate change.

This news comes straight from the leftist eco-nuts at Inside Climate
News, so you can be assured that it isn’t a “paranoid” conservative
interpretation of an innocuous FEMA regulation:

"The Federal Emergency Management Agency is making it
tougher for governors to deny man-made climate change. Starting next
year, the agency will approve disaster preparedness funds only for
states whose governors approve hazard mitigation plans that address
climate change".

Sounds pretty fascist to me. If you have the truth on your side, you do
not need to force people to believe it. Only liars and charlatans resort
to bullying tactics like this.

"This may put several Republican governors who
maintain the earth isn’t warming due to human activities, or prefer to
do nothing about it, into a political bind. Their position may block
their states’ access to hundreds of millions of dollars in FEMA funds".

Basically it works like this: state governments must accept that
man-made global warming is real and commit public funds to programs
designed to mitigate the effects of it, even if it isn’t real. State
governments that fail to do this will loose out on millions, if not
billions, in FEMA funds.

"Specifically, beginning in March 2016, states
seeking preparedness money will have to assess how climate change
threatens their communities. Governors will have to sign off on hazard
mitigation plans. While some states, including New York, have already
started incorporating climate risks in their plans, most haven’t because
FEMA’s old 2008 guidelines didn’t require it".

And it appears that this isn’t just about global warming, but all things that environmentalist hate:

“This could potentially become a major conflict for
several Republican governors,” said Barry Rabe, an expert on the
politics of climate change at the University of Michigan. “We aren’t
just talking about coastal states.” Climate change affects droughts,
rainfall and tornado activity. Fracking is being linked to more
earthquakes, he said. “This could affect state leaders across the
country.”

What the hell does fracking have to do with global warming? Does this
mean that states that allow fracking are also going to have funds
withheld? Probably.

Don’t go thinking this new regulation is a shakedown. According to FEMA
spokeswoman Susan Hendrick forcing states to accept global warming as
reality is actually just a way to “raise awareness and support for
implementing the actions in the mitigation strategy and increasing
statewide resilience to natural hazards.”

Raise awareness? Sounds more like a fun run than a tyrannical mandate. Here’s the best part about all this:

"The new federal rules don’t require public
involvement in the creation of states’ disaster preparedness plans,
eliminating the opportunity for environmental groups and concerned
citizens to submit comments or concerns about the assessments".

So FEMA, an unelected body, will withhold vital funds from states if
they don’t believe in man-made global warming and there is to be no
public debate or scrutiny. That’s as Obama as it gets. I’m sure if this
works out, he’ll try a similar scheme for gun control, gay marriage, and
abortion.

“Before Americans are asked to pay more billions for an energy resource
that still, after 23 years, cannot stand on its own two feet, Congress
should ask DOE to get out of the vision business and report on the
practicality of wind energy reaching even 10% of the U.S. power market.”

The Department of Energy, has once again buddied up with its friends in
the wind industry to releasing an updated vision of how the United wind
energy can achieve a 20% market share of the electricity (not total
energy) market by 2030. This time, DOE went a step further to claim we
could get to 10% wind by 2020 and a whopping 35% wind by 2050 (wind’s
current electric-market share is 4.5%).

A quick review of the report suggests it suffers the same flaws as DOE’s
last attempt from 2008. For example, using DOE’s own numbers, between
now and 2020 (5 years), the U.S. would need to:

1) Install another 52,000 MW of wind. That would be more than 10,000 MW per year;

2) Of this, 3,000 MW would be offshore, where none exists today. (DOE’s analysis was completed before Cape Wind collapsed);

3) Improve overall capacity factors to 40% average where they have stagnated at 30% for years.

Obviously, we will not see a change in capacity factors for existing
wind projects, so that means the next 52,000 MW will have to operate at
efficiencies of roughly 50%. DOE’s report, apparently banks on
technology improvements between now and 2020 to achieve the increases in
production. It also banks on the continuation of the wind production
tax credit (PTC).

But what DOE seems to be downplaying is the fact that the wind PTC has
never led to the type of wind development the agency is claiming
possible.

The years when we had large deployments of wind turbines were tied to
the 1603 cash grant program in place from 2009-2012. And these were
discrete events – 2010 had 10,000 MW and 2012 had 13,000 MW – with an
average across the four years of roughly 8,000 MW. In 2013, only 1,000
MW were installed after the cash grant program expired and the industry
flushed it’s project pipeline racing to get the grant money.

Whether DOE’s vision has credibility is one question before us. The
second is whether American taxpayers want, or can afford the
“investment” in wind power. The federal budget deficit promises to be a
major issue for reform in the 2016 elections, if not before.

According to EIA, wind energy received the largest share of direct
federal subsidies and support in FY 2013, accounting for 37% of total
electricity-related subsidies ($5,936 billion). Nearly three-fourths of
FY 2013 wind energy subsidies were direct expenditures largely resulting
from the grant program. FY 2013 did not represent the biggest payout
for wind. Costs associated with the federal grant program are
assigned to the year in which a project is placed in service. In FY
2010, 84% of Section 1603 grant payments went to wind energy.

Looking at the cost per megawatt hour paid to fund wind versus other
beneficiaries, the numbers are staggering. The below table relies on
data from EIA for the years 2007, 2010, and 2013.

These numbers represent only the federal subsidies paid to wind versus
other technologies. Additional subsidies are available to wind through
state renewable portfolio standards and integration costs borne by rate-
and taxpayers.

Before Americans are asked to pay more billions for an energy resource
that still, after 23 years, cannot stand on its own two feet, Congress
should ask DOE to get out of the vision business and report on the
practicality of wind energy reaching even 10% of the U.S. power market.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

24 March, 2015

An amusing new wrinkle on "ad hominem" argument

The latest brainwave of the Warmists below. Once again they
refuse to discuss the science and instead focus on personalities.
And their preamble about the sufferings of Warmists is just
fantasy. No links to proof of the accusations

For nearly thirty years, climate scientists have been the targets of
character assassination by the fossil-fuel industry’s hired guns.
They’ve been mugged on the streets of public discourse, pounded by the
fists of demagoguery and smear. Their lives have been upended in an
effort to have their research suspended. They’ve been kicked, slapped,
whipped, tripped, and called every ugly name in the book.

Now they’re fighting back, in a bold and innovative new campaign known
as More Than Scientists. This campaign provides an inside look into the
lives of the climate scientists whose extensive research led to the
scientific verdict that greenhouse gas emissions were causing our
planet’s temperature to increase to dangerous levels.

Eric Michaelman, a Seattle-based climate activist, is the creator of
this effort. In an e-mail interview last week, Michaelman told me that
this initiative “developed out of discussions and brainstorming between
longtime climate activists in the Seattle area and scientists at the
University of Washington who personally wanted to play a more
constructive part in the public conversation about climate…[W]e felt
that video would be the best medium with the goal of helping the public
better get to know the scientists personally, since when you see and
hear someone talking it’s easy to make your own impression of their
sincerity and conviction.”

Rational-thinking people have long since been convinced of the sincerity
and conviction of those who have labored tirelessly for decades to
analyze the risk greenhouse gases pose to the planet. However, if you
have any friends who still think Sean Hannity knows more about climate
change than actual climate scientists, ask them to watch these videos
and see if they change their minds…or just keep them closed.

THE environmental movement has advanced three arguments in recent years
for giving up fossil fuels: (1) that we will soon run out of them
anyway; (2) that alternative sources of energy will price them out of
the marketplace; and (3) that we cannot afford the climate consequences
of burning them.

These days, not one of the three arguments is looking very healthy. In
fact, a more realistic assessment of our energy and environmental
situation suggests that, for decades to come, we will continue to rely
overwhelmingly on the fossil fuels that have contributed so dramatically
to the world’s prosperity and progress.

In 2013, about 87 per cent of the energy that the world consumed came
from fossil fuels, a figure that — remarkably — was unchanged from 10
years before. This roughly divides into three categories of fuel and
three categories of use: oil used mainly for transport, gas used mainly
for heating, and coal used mainly for electricity.

Over this period, the overall volume of fossil-fuel consumption has
increased dramatically, but with an encouraging environmental trend: a
diminishing amount of carbon-dioxide emissions per unit of energy
produced. The biggest contribution to decarbonising the system has been
the switch from high-carbon coal to lower-carbon gas in electricity
generation.

On a global level, renewable energy sources such as wind and solar have
contributed hardly at all to the drop in carbon emissions, and their
modest growth has merely made up for a decline in the fortunes of
zero-carbon nuclear energy. (The reader should know that I have an
indirect interest in coal through the ownership of land in Northern
England on which it is mined, but I nonetheless applaud the displacement
of coal by gas in recent years.)

The argument that fossil fuels will soon run out is dead, at least for a
while. The collapse of the price of oil over the past six months is the
result of abundance: an inevitable consequence of the high oil prices
of recent years, which stimulated innovation in hydraulic fracturing,
horizontal drilling, seismology and information technology. The US — the
country with the oldest and most developed hydrocarbon fields — has
found itself once again, surprisingly, at the top of the
energy-producing league, rivalling Saudi Arabia in oil and Russia in
gas.

The shale genie is now out of the bottle. Even if the current low price
drives out some high-cost oil producers — in the North Sea, Canada,
Russia, Iran and offshore, as well as in America — shale drillers can
step back in whenever the price rebounds. As Mark Hill of Allegro
Development Corporation argued last week, the frankers are currently
experiencing their own version of Moore’s law: a rapid fall in the cost
and time it takes to drill a well, along with a rapid rise in the volume
of hydrocarbons they are able to extract.

And the shale revolution has yet to go global. When it does, oil and gas
in tight rock formations will give the world ample supplies of
hydrocarbons for decades, if not centuries. Lurking in the wings for
later technological breakthroughs is methane hydrate, a sea floor source
of gas that exceeds in quantity all the world’s coal, oil and gas put
together.

So those who predict the imminent exhaustion of fossil fuels are merely
repeating the mistakes of the US presidential commission that opined in
1922 that “already the output of gas has begun to wane. Production of
oil cannot long maintain its present rate.” Or president Jimmy Carter
when he announced on television in 1977 that “we could use up all the
proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next
decade.”

That fossil fuels are finite is a red herring. The Atlantic Ocean is
finite, but that does not mean that you risk bumping into France if you
row out of a harbour in Maine. The buffalo of the American West were
infinite, in the sense that they could breed, yet they came close to
extinction. It is an ironic truth that no non-renewable resource has
ever run dry, while renewable resources — whales, cod, forests,
passenger pigeons — have frequently done so.

The second argument for giving up fossil fuels is that new rivals will
shortly price them out of the market. But it is not happening. The great
hope has long been nuclear energy, but even if there is a rush to build
new nuclear power stations over the next few years, most will simply
replace old ones due to close.

The world’s nuclear output is down from 6 per cent of world energy
consumption in 2003 to 4 per cent today. It is forecast to inch back up
to just 6.7 per cent by 2035, according the Energy Information
Administration.

Nuclear’s problem is cost. In meeting the safety concerns of
environmentalists, politicians and regulators added requirements for
extra concrete, steel and pipework, and even more for extra lawyers,
paperwork and time.

The effect was to make nuclear plants into huge boondoggles with no
competition or experimentation to drive down costs. Nuclear is now able
to compete with fossil fuels only when it is subsidised.

As for renewable energy, hydro-electric is the biggest and cheapest
supplier, but it has the least capacity for expansion. Technologies that
tap the energy of waves and tides remain unaffordable and impractical.

Geothermal is a minor player for now. And bioenergy — that is, wood,
ethanol made from corn or sugar cane, or diesel made from palm oil — is
proving an ecological disaster: It encourages deforestation and
food-price hikes that cause devastation among the world’s poor, and per
unit of energy produced, it creates even more carbon dioxide than coal.

Wind power, for all the public money spent on its expansion, has inched
up to — wait for it — 1 per cent of world energy consumption in 2013.
Solar, for all the hype, has not even managed that: If we round to the
nearest whole number, it accounts for 0 per cent of world energy
consumption.

Both wind and solar are entirely reliant on subsidies for such economic
viability as they have. Worldwide, the subsidies given to renewable
energy currently amount to roughly $10 per gigajoule: These sums are
paid by consumers to producers, so they tend to go from the poor to the
rich, often to landowners.

It is true that some countries subsidise the use of fossil fuels, but
they do so at a much lower rate — the world average is about $1.20 per
gigajoule — and these are mostly subsidies for consumers (not
producers), so they tend to help the poor, for whom energy costs are a
disproportionate share of spending.

The costs of renewable energy are coming down, especially in the case of
solar. But even if solar panels were free, the power they produce would
still struggle to compete with fossil fuel — except in some very sunny
locations — because of all the capital equipment required to concentrate
and deliver the energy.

This is to say nothing of the great expanses of land on which solar
facilities must be built and the cost of retaining sufficient
conventional generator capacity to guarantee supply on a dark, cold,
windless evening.

The two fundamental problems that renewables face are that they take up too much space and produce too little energy.

To run the US economy entirely on wind would require a wind farm the
size of Texas, California and New Mexico combined — backed up by gas on
windless days. To power it on wood would require a forest covering
two-thirds of the U.S., heavily and continually harvested.

John Constable, who will head a new Energy Institute at the University
of Buckingham in Britain, points out that the trickle of energy that
human beings managed to extract from wind, water and wood before the
Industrial Revolution placed a great limit on development and progress.

The incessant toil of farm labourers generated so little surplus energy
in the form of food for men and draft animals that the accumulation of
capital, such as machinery, was painfully slow. Even as late as the 18th
century, this energy-deprived economy was sufficient to enrich daily
life for only a fraction of the population.

Our old enemy, the second law of thermodynamics, is the problem here. As
a teenager’s bedroom generally illustrates, left to its own devices,
everything in the world becomes less ordered, more chaotic, tending
toward “entropy,” or thermodynamic equilibrium. To reverse this tendency
and make something complex, ordered and functional requires work. It
requires energy.

The more energy you have, the more intricate, powerful and complex you
can make a system. Just as human bodies need energy to be ordered and
functional, so do societies. In that sense, fossil fuels were a unique
advance because they allowed human beings to create extraordinary
patterns of order and complexity — machines and buildings — with which
to improve their lives.

The result of this great boost in energy is what economic historian and
philosopher Deirdre McCloskey calls the Great Enrichment. In the case of
the US, there has been a roughly 9000 per cent increase in the value of
goods and services available to the average American since 1800, almost
all of which are made with, made of, powered by or propelled by fossil
fuels.

Still, more than a billion people on the planet have yet to get access
to electricity and to experience the leap in living standards that
abundant energy brings. This is not just an inconvenience for them:
Indoor air pollution from wood fires kills four million people a year.
The next time that somebody at a rally against fossil fuels lectures you
about her concern for the fate of her grandchildren, show her a picture
of an African child dying today from inhaling the dense muck of a smoky
fire.

Notice, too, the ways in which fossil fuels have contributed to
preserving the planet. As the American author and fossil-fuels advocate
Alex Epstein points out in a bravely unfashionable book, The Moral Case
for Fossil Fuels, the use of coal halted and then reversed the
deforestation of Europe and North America.

The turn to oil halted the slaughter of the world’s whales and seals for
their blubber. Fertiliser manufactured with gas halved the amount of
land needed to produce a given amount of food, thus feeding a growing
population while sparing land for wild nature.

To throw away these immense economic, environmental and moral benefits,
you would have to have a very good reason. The one most often invoked
today is that we are wrecking the planet’s climate. But are we?

Although the world has certainly warmed since the 19th century, the rate
of warming has been slow and erratic. There has been no increase in the
frequency or severity of storms or droughts, no acceleration of
sea-level rise. Arctic sea ice has decreased, but Antarctic sea ice has
increased.

At the same time, scientists are agreed that the extra carbon dioxide in
the air has contributed to an improvement in crop yields and a roughly
14 per cent increase in the amount of all types of green vegetation on
the planet since 1980.

That carbon-dioxide emissions should cause warming is not a new idea. In
1938, the British scientist Guy Callender thought that he could already
detect warming as a result of carbon-dioxide emissions. He reckoned,
however, that this was “likely to prove beneficial to mankind” by
shifting northward the climate where cultivation was possible.

Only in the 1970s and 80s did scientists begin to say that the mild
warming expected as a direct result of burning fossil fuels — roughly a
degree Celsius per doubling of carbon-dioxide concentrations in the
atmosphere — might be greatly amplified by water vapour and result in
dangerous warming of two to four degrees a century or more.

That “feedback” assumption of high “sensitivity” remains in virtually
all of the mathematical models used to this day by the UN
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC.

And yet it is increasingly possible that it is wrong. As Patrick
Michaels of the libertarian Cato Institute has written, since 2000, 14
peer-reviewed papers, published by 42 authors, many of whom are key
contributors to the reports of the IPCC, have concluded that climate
sensitivity is low because net feedbacks are modest.

They arrive at this conclusion based on observed temperature changes,
ocean-heat uptake and the balance between warming and cooling emissions
(mainly sulfate aerosols). On average, they find sensitivity to be 40
per cent lower than the models on which the IPCC relies.

If these conclusions are right, they would explain the failure of the
Earth’s surface to warm nearly as fast as predicted over the past 35
years, a time when — despite carbon-dioxide levels rising faster than
expected — the warming rate has never reached even two-tenths of a
degree per decade and has slowed down to virtually nothing in the past
15 to 20 years. This is one reason the latest IPCC report did not give a
“best estimate” of sensitivity and why it lowered its estimate of
near-term warming.

Most climate scientists remain reluctant to abandon the models and take
the view that the current “hiatus” has merely delayed rapid warming. A
turning point to dangerously rapid warming could be around the corner,
even though it should have shown up by now. So it would be wise to do
something to cut our emissions, so long as that something does not hurt
the poor and those struggling to reach a modern standard of living.

We should encourage the switch from coal to gas in the generation of
electricity, provide incentives for energy efficiency, get nuclear power
back on track and keep developing solar power and electricity storage.
We should also invest in research on ways to absorb carbon dioxide from
the air, by fertilising the ocean or fixing it through carbon capture
and storage. Those measures all make sense. And there is every reason to
promote open-ended research to find some unexpected new energy
technology.

The one thing that will not work is the one thing that the environmental
movement insists upon: subsidising wealthy crony capitalists to build
low-density, low-output, capital-intensive, land-hungry renewable energy
schemes, while telling the poor to give up the dream of getting richer
through fossil fuels.

Though some environmentalists love their dogs more than they love their
Sierra Club reusable water bottles, a single dog can have a bigger
ecological footprint than an SUV. And cats aren’t much better. According
to research highlighted by the New Scientist, it takes an estimated 1.1
hectares of land per year to create the chicken and grain that a large
dog eats for its food. A Toyota Land Cruiser SUV, driven 10,000
kilometres a year, would use .41 hectares of land, less than half that
of the dog.

"Owning a dog really is quite an extravagance," Dr. John Barrett of the
Stockholm Environment Institute in York, UK told the New Scientist,
"mainly because of the carbon footprint of meat."

Cats and dogs also wreak havoc on the local wildlife. The estimated 7.7
million cats in the United Kingdom kill more than 188 million wild
animals every year. And cat excrement, which can contain the disease
Toxoplasma gondii, has been blamed for killing sea otters (and may have a
hand in causing schizophrenia in humans, according to RadioLab).*

The New Scientist has some suggestions of how to lessen Fido’s
ecological “pawprint,” including feeding him more environmentally
friendly foods. Perhaps forcing people to consider the impact of their
pets may keep the carbon footprint on a leash.

Yesterday it was reported that sea lion pups along the California coast
are literally starving to death. According to scientists at the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), global warming has
nothing to do with it. It's all part of an El Niño weather pattern
that's wreaking havoc on the food chain supply. sick sea lion

NOAA released figures yesterday showing that since January 1, "more than
1,800 starving sea lion pups have washed up on California beaches since
Jan. 1 and 750 are being treated" in marine mammal care centers across
the state.

Scientists at NOAA believe the crisis hasn't reached its peak and expect
more sea lions to show up on beaches for at least two more months.
Meanwhile, thousands of adult maleCalifornia sea lions are "surging into
the Pacific Northwest, crowding onto docks and jetties in coastal
communities."

According to NOAA, the "Channel Islands rookeries where nearly all
California sea lions raise their young sit in the middle of the warm
expanse. Female sea lions have strong ties to the rookeries. They take
foraging trips of a few days at a time before returning to the rookeries
to nurse their pups."

But this warm expanse has risen from 2 to 6 degrees Fahrenheit (when
compared to the long-term average), which is not an ideal environment
for the sea lion's diet: fish and squid,including "salmon, hake, Pacific
whiting, anchovy, herring, rockfish, lamprey, dogfish, and market
squid." Sea lions will even eat clams.

It's believed their food source is moving north to cooler waters,
forcing the mothers to abandon their pups as they travel further away
from the nurseries in search of food, sometimes for over a week. As a
result, "the pups aren't eating as much or as frequently and they are
weaning themselves early out of desperation and striking out on their
own even though they are underweight and can't hunt properly."

NOAA says that a particularly strong weather pattern known as El Niño is
to blame, not climate change. “It’s a very regional patch of warm water
and it doesn’t look like global warming to me,” said Nate Mantua, a
NOAA research scientist based in Santa Cruz, California.

El Niño weather patterns are "associated with a band of warm ocean water
that develops in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific,"
which in turn warms the ocean off the Southern California coast. The
last El Niño of this magnitude was in 1998, when "2,500 sea lion pups
were found washed up on California beaches."

On March 5, 2015, NOAA predicted this El Niño weather pattern would be
weak, and have little influence on weather and climate. "NOAA scientists
will continue to monitor the situation and will issue its next monthly
update on April 9."

Meanwhile, NOAA says the sea pups rescued by animal centers are
tube-fed, tagged, and then released back into the wild. Unfortunately,
the vast majority of sea pups spotted and reported to authorities are
beyond help, with some dying and others being euthanized.

After decades of environmental claims that “global warming” would plunge
the planet into catastrophic harm to its human and other inhabitants—at
the same time blaming humans for causing it—the sheer arrogance and
ignorance of these claims always ignores the real power that is
represented by the Earth itself and the beginning of Spring should be
proof enough for anyone paying any attention.

This year, Spring begins in the northern hemisphere on Friday, March 20
at 6:45 PM EDT. In the southern hemisphere it marks the beginning of
Autumn.

Spring manifests itself in ways we take for granted yet it is a
combination of many events that should make us marvel if we gave them
any thought. For example, where does all the snow go? The U.S. and the
rest of the world set records of snowfall levels throughout Winter.

As noted by the U.S. Geological Service, “in the world-wide scheme of
the water cycle, runoff from snowmelt is a major component of the global
movement of water.”

“Mountain snow fields act as natural reservoirs for many western United
States water-supply systems, storing precipitation from the cool season,
when most precipitation falls and forms snowpacks…As much as 75 percent
of water supplies in the western states are derived from
snowmelt.” Snowmelt ensures sufficient water for all of us and for
the Earth that depends upon it for the growth of all vegetation.

How do the flowers know it is Spring? In a 2011 article for the Inside
Science News Service, Katherine Gammon noted that “Just in time for the
birds and bees to start buzzing, the flowers and the trees somehow know
when to open their buds to start flowering. But the exact way that
plants get their wake-up call has been something of a mystery.” A
molecular biologist at the University of Texas, Sibum Sung, has been
trying to solve that mystery and has discovered “a special molecule in
plants that gives them the remarkable ability to recall Winter and to
bloom on schedule in the Spring.”

Nothing on Earth happens by accident. It is a remarkable inter-related
system to which we give little thought. The sheer power of all those
blooming flowers and trees should tell us something about the power of
Nature that dwarfs all the claims that humans have any influence
whatever on the events of Spring or any other time of the year.

Then think about the role of the animals with whom we share the planet.
In the Spring many come out of hibernation in their dens, while others
such as birds make lengthy migrations from the warmer climes to those in
the north. The huge migration of Monarch Butterflies should leave us
speechless. Spring is a time when many animals give birth to their
young.

A sign of the Spring that leaves us breathless is the way it is the
season for the aurora borealis. Dr. Tony Phillips of NASA notes that
“For reasons not fully understood by scientists, the weeks around the
vernal equinox are prone to Northern Lights. From Canada to Scandinavia
they provide a great show.

“Such outbursts are called auroral substorms and they have long puzzled
physicists,” says UCLA space physicist Vassilis Angelopoulos. They
represent “a potent geomagnetic storm.” The equinox in Spring and Autumn
is a time when magnetic connections between the Sun and Earth are most
favorable.

One book, “Silent Spring”, by Rachel Carson, first published in
September 1962, started the environmental campaign against pesticide use
for any reason, leading most famously to the ban on DDT in the U.S.
What Carson neglected to tell readers was how they were supposed to cope
with the trillions of insects that come with the advent of warm
weather.

No pesticide use does not mean less mosquitoes, less termites, less
flies, less ants, or less of any other insect species and the diseases
they spread, property damage, and the damage they cause to crops of all
descriptions. And, of course, the much of the pollination of crops and
other vegetation depends on insect species.

Carson’s claims of a silent spring bereft of bird species was a blatant
lie. Rich Kozlovich, an authority on pest management, noted that “Bird
populations were never so high in North America” despite the use of DDT
and other pesticides. “Carson’s claim about how the poor robin was going
to disappear was not only wrong, she was deliberately lying.”

“Carson was a science writer for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and
absolutely had to know that in 1960 there were 12 times more robins, 21
times more cowbirds, 38 times more blackbirds, 131 times more grackles,
etc., compared to 1941 numbers.”

Spring is a time of renewal in the northern hemisphere and it occurs
with enormous levels of natural power. Most people, however, are
oblivious to that power as they enjoy the sight of flowers and trees
blooming.

I could almost guarantee that you will read or hear about “global
warming” or “climate change” being attributed to the arrival of Spring.
Do yourself a favor. Keep in mind that those claims, like Rachel
Carson’s, represent an anti-humanity, anti-energy, and anti-capitalism
agenda of the environmental movement.

Instead, celebrate the seasonal renewal of life on Earth and give thanks
for the energy that permits you to control the environment of the
structures where you live and work, that provides you the means to get
in your car and go anywhere, and that powers every device you use

The resources and ports sectors continue to defend their dredging
practices as safe after the Queensland and federal governments unveiled a
long-term Great Barrier Reef management plan.

The plan includes a ban on dumping dredge spoil anywhere in the world
heritage area, a limit on port expansion to four sites and targets for
reducing sediment, nutrient and pesticide contamination.

It will be a key factor in the UNESCO world heritage committee's
decision on whether to list the reef as "in danger" in June this year.

The Greens on Monday urged the federal government to go further after
the Australian Coral Reef Society released a report recommending against
the expansion of the Abbot Point coal terminal in central Queensland.

Top coral reef scientists were presenting a choice between protecting
the Great Barrier Reef and developing Queensland's Galilee Basin, Greens
senator Larissa Waters said. "In an age of climate change, it's
scientifically impossible to do both," she said.

"The Abbott and Palaszczuk government's Reef 2050 Plan for the World
Heritage Committee completely ignores the impact of the Galilee Basin
coal mines on the reef and other world heritage areas."

Ms Waters said increased shipping through the reef would lead to ocean acidification, more dangerous storms and coral bleaching.

But linking the basin's development to the reef's plight was "a new low
point in a campaign of misinformation", GVK Hancock said.

Every reputable analyst agreed that global demand for coal would grow
for many decades regardless of the basin's development, spokesman Josh
Euler said. "If we as a nation don't develop the Galilee Basin
then some other country will develop their equivalent resource," he
said.

Mr Euler said this would allow competitors to gain significant financial
and employment benefits. "The expansion of the existing Abbot
Point Port will not impact the Great Barrier Reef."

The government's plan ignores a science-based approach to dredging, according to Ports Australia.

An unwarranted blanket ban on dredging was placing the long-term
viability of the ports system at risk, according to chief executive
David Anderson.

"The science has been discarded, and instead the policy has been
dictated by an activist ideology, with the complicity of UNESCO, which
has swayed these governments," he said.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

23 March, 2015

Climate change not so global

This pesky story for Greenies is from last year. It may have
been contradicted by now. Limited sampling gives unstable results
in glaciology

Scientists are calling for a better understanding of regional climates,
after research into New Zealand's glaciers has revealed climate change
in the Northern Hemisphere does not directly affect the climate in the
Southern Hemisphere.

The University of Queensland study showed that future climate changes
may impact differently in the two hemispheres, meaning a generalised
global approach isn't the solution to climate issues.
UQ School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Management Head
Professor Jamie Shulmeister said the study provided evidence for the
late survival of significant glaciers in the mountains of New Zealand at
the end of the last ice age – a time when other ice areas were
retreating.

"This study reverses previous findings which suggested that New
Zealand's glaciers disappeared at the same time as ice in the Northern
Hemisphere," he said.

"We showed that when the Northern Hemisphere started to warm at the end
of the last ice age, New Zealand glaciers were unaffected.
"These glaciers began to retreat several thousand years later, when
changes in the Southern Ocean led to increased carbon dioxide emissions
and warming.

"This indicates that future climate change may impact differently in the
two hemispheres and that changes in the Southern Ocean are likely to be
critical for Australia and New Zealand."

The study used exposure dating of moraines - mounds of rocks formed by
glaciers - to reconstruct the rate of ice retreat in New Zealand's
Ashburton Valley after the last glacial maximum – the time when the ice
sheets were at their largest.

The researchers found that the period from the last glacial maximum to
the end of the ice age was longer in New Zealand than in the Northern
Hemisphere.

They also found that the maximum glacier extent in New Zealand occurred
several thousand years before the maximum in the Northern Hemisphere,
demonstrating that growth of the northern ice sheets did not cause
expansion of New Zealand glaciers.

"New Zealand glaciers responded largely to local changes in the Southern
Ocean, rather than changes in the Northern Hemisphere as was previously
believed," Professor Shulmeister said. "This study highlights the need
to understand regional climate rather than a global one-size-fits-all."

We present here a comprehensive record of glaciation from a New Zealand
valley glacier system covering the critical 15,000-y period from the
local last glacial maximum (LGM) to near the end of the last ice age.
This record from a key site in the midlatitude Southern Hemisphere shows
that the largest glacial advance did not coincide with the coldest
temperatures during this phase. We also show that the regional post-LGM
ice retreat was very gradual, contrary to the rapid ice collapse widely
inferred. This demonstrates that glacial records from New Zealand are
neither synchronous with nor simply lag or lead Northern Hemisphere ice
sheet records, which has important implications for the reconstruction
of past interhemispheric climate linkages and mechanisms.

Abstract

Recent debate on records of southern midlatitude glaciation has focused
on reconstructing glacier dynamics during the last glacial termination,
with different results supporting both in-phase and out-of-phase
correlations with Northern Hemisphere glacial signals. A continuing
major weakness in this debate is the lack of robust data, particularly
from the early and maximum phase of southern midlatitude glaciation
(?30–20 ka), to verify the competing models. Here we present a suite of
58 cosmogenic exposure ages from 17 last-glacial ice limits in the
Rangitata Valley of New Zealand, capturing an extensive record of
glacial oscillations between 28–16 ka. The sequence shows that the local
last glacial maximum in this region occurred shortly before 28 ka,
followed by several successively less extensive ice readvances between
26–19 ka. The onset of Termination 1 and the ensuing glacial retreat is
preserved in exceptional detail through numerous recessional moraines,
indicating that ice retreat between 19–16 ka was very gradual. Extensive
valley glaciers survived in the Rangitata catchment until at least 15.8
ka. These findings preclude the previously inferred rapid
climate-driven ice retreat in the Southern Alps after the onset of
Termination 1. Our record documents an early last glacial maximum, an
overall trend of diminishing ice volume in New Zealand between 28–20 ka,
and gradual deglaciation until at least 15 ka.

There's a new film you should see about the industry of Climate Change
Denial: Merchants of Doubt. It will be shown in only a limited
release, but you can also stream it on Hulu. Here's the trailer:

And one of the featured "stars" of the film is the Marc Morano, who runs
the climate denial blog Climate Depot (link deliberately not provided),
a former staffer of Senator James Inhofe (R - Big Oil). He openly
admits in Merchants of Doubt that "I'm not a scientist, although I do I
play one on TV occasionally. Okay, hell, maybe more than occasionally.
[Laughs]" That's one of his many jobs - debating real climate
scientists on news outlets, among them Fox News and CNN. You can
see him in the the trailer of the documentary also saying the
following:

"Communication is about sales. Keep it
simple. People will fill in the blanks with their own - I hate to
say biases - but with their own perspectives in many cases. [...]

We go up against a scientist, most of them are very hard to understand and very BORING"

But Morano is much more than merely a shill for hire. He is one
nasty piece of work. A former producer of Rush Limbaugh's radio
show, he also helped jump start the Swift Boat campaign against John
Kerry with his May 3, 2004 CNS article “Kerry ‘Unfit to be
Commander-in-Chief,’ Say Former Military Colleagues" which CNS has
conveniently scrubbed from its website, but which you can read in it
entirety here. Morano was also instrumental in casting aspersions on
Rep. John Murtha's military record and the medals and citations Murtha
was awarded, after Murtha came out in 2005 against any further
deployment of troops to Iraq.

Now the Cybercast News Service, a supposedly
independent organization with deep ties to the Republican Party, has
dusted off the Swift Boat Veterans playbook, questioning whether Mr.
Murtha deserved his two Purple Hearts. The article also implied that Mr.
Murtha did not deserve the Bronze Star he received, and that the
combat-distinguishing "V" on it was questionable. It then called on Mr.
Murtha to open up his military records.

Cybercast News Service is run by David Thibault, who
formerly worked as the senior producer for "Rising Tide," the televised
weekly news magazine produced by the Republican National Committee. One
of the authors of the Murtha article was Marc Morano, a long-time writer
and producer for Rush Limbaugh.

However, the most despicable thing he does now is post lies about, and
misleading quotes (conveniently taken out of context) by, climate
scientists on his website. Then he publishes their email
addresses. In short he's a serial harasser of scientists who
publish peer reviewed scientific research linking climate change to the
burning of carbon based fuels. You can imagine the result.

Climate ethicist Donald Brown, who has been the focus
of Morano’s “reprehensible” tactics four times, called it “sheer
intimidation.” In 2012, highly-regarded MIT climatologist (and
Republican) Kerry Emanuel — another Morano target — wrote me, “I had
heard about the hate mail and threats received by others, but am
surprised at how little it takes these days to trigger hysterical and
hateful responses from the ideologues out there.” Emanuel explained that
some emails contained “veiled threats against my wife,” and other
“tangible threats.”

Morano himself seems to think this is all just fun and games. Or
so he has claimed, when he says in Merchants of Doubt how much he
enjoyed coming up with new ways to "mock and ridicule" scientists when
he worked for Inhofe. The truth is, there is nothing funny about
what he does, as his own rhetoric is often tinged with the language of
violence and hate, such as this example from an article in the March
2010 issue of Scientific Americanwhich he was quoted as saying climate
scientists are perpetrating a "con job."

"You have every aspect of our lives subject to
regulatory control - down to the light bulbs we can put in - based on
climate science," Morano said. The researchers "never wanted to debate
and they kept trying to demand the debate was over."

"Whenever you have someone ginning up a crisis and
wanting to take power, you're going to have anger," he added. "When
you've been conned at a used car dealer, you don't go back cheerily and
politely to talk to them." [...]

"I seriously believe we should kick them while they're down" ... "They deserve to be publicly flogged."

So, what possible reason could Morano have for
prominently displaying these email addresses – as he does for many other
stories that involve climate scientists he evidently despises – other
than to encourage his readers who lap up his warped world vision to "get
in touch"? I'll let you fill in the gaps.

What exactly are Morano's credentials as a climate expert - other than
working for Rush Limbaugh and James Inhofe, and as a journalist for the
right wing media outlet, Cybercast News Service? Desmogblog has
the details on his "credentials" such as they are.

Marc Morano is the executive director and chief
correspondent of ClimateDepot.com, a project of the Committee for a
Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT). Morano is also the Communications
Director at CFACT, a conservative think-tank in Washington D.C. that has
received funding from ExxonMobil, Chevron, as well as hundreds of
thousands of dollars from foundations associated with Richard Mellon
Scaife. According to 2011 IRS Forms (PDF), Morano was the highest paid
staff member with a salary of $150,000 per year. Morano's blog Climate
Depot regularly publishes articles questioning man-made global warming.

Although he has no scientific expertise in the area,
Morano has become a prominent climate change denier. He has been called
“the Matt Drudge of climate denial”, the “King of the skeptics,” and a
“central cell of the climate-denial machine.” He was also listed as one
of 17 top “climate killers” by Rolling Stone Magazine. He has accused
climate scientists of “fear mongering,” and has claimed that proponents
of man-made global warming are “funded to the tune of $50 billion.”

When Morano was asked about his qualifications for
speaking about an issue such as climate science, he responded by saying,
“I have a background in political science, which is the perfect
qualification to examine global warming.”

I suppose his background in political science and "smear campaigns"
helps him keep his communications to his audience simple, so they can
provide the proper "perspectives" to the "information" he "sells"
regarding climate change. Simple enough to ratchet up unreasonable
hate and threats toward real scientists earning far less than Mr.
Morano does.

Sure hope Morano doesn't decide to "release the dogs" by posting
personal information about the scientists of the ICECAP team who so
recently revealed the dangers of thinning ice from warming ocean current
in both West and East Antarctica. But maybe he'll be too busy
enjoying his status as the "star" of the documentary about his deceitful
and unethical tactics to smear bigger fish in the climate science
community, to bother with the folks of ICECAP.

Kenner, 65, does admire people such as Marc Morano, a
professional climate-change denier and founder of the Climate Depot Web
site who is, arguably, the star of Kenner’s film [Merchants of Doubt].
[...]

In “Doubt,” Morano recounts with glee how he has
published the e-mail addresses of climate scientists, subjecting them to
intimidation and flaming attacks from anonymous critics. (Several of
the abusive e-mails are read aloud in the film by their recipients, in
an evocation of Jimmy Kimmel’s “Celebrities Read Mean Tweets” segments.)
It makes for a semi-serious tone that masks Kenner’s more sobering
message: We’re routinely being lied to, by people who are darn good at
it.

Unfortunately, the efforts of people like Morano, who by any definition
is a thug and character assassin, have had a lasting effect already on
our ability to limit the effects of man-made climate change, as Harvard
Professor, Naomi Oreskes, co-author of the book Merchants of Doubt, on
which the film of the same name is based, points out.

“Scientists are worried. We’ve lost 20 years. If this
keeps up as we’re going, we’re looking at a 6- to 10-foot rise in the
sea level by 2100.” The film brings that point home graphically, showing
a map of Boston and nearly all major coastal cities underwater.
Reiterating the pandemic fear sweeping through the scientific community,
Oreskes points to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)
recommendation of a significant (some say 80 percent) reduction in
emissions by 2050 as a necessary course of action. “The really crucial
thing,” Oreskes says, “is to get started on emissions reduction, because
once we do, technology and momentum will kick in. The hardest thing is
to start.”

Yes, twenty critical years wasted thanks to hacks and mercenaries like
Marc Morano. Years that we could have turned the tide to limit our
exorbitant emissions of greenhouse gases. Years that we will never
recover. And Morano is still out there right now, working hard to
delay action on climate change for another twenty years, while being
well paid to destroy the lives of hundreds of millions in the short
term, and quite possibly by the end of the century, billions of human
beings (not to mention all the other species going extinct because of
global warming). Is it any wonder I labeled Morano "Evil" in my
title? Trust me, it isn't hyperbole.

I am skeptical humans are the main cause of climate change and that it
will be catastrophic in the near future. There is no scientific proof of
this hypothesis, yet we are told “the debate is over” and “the science
is settled.”

My skepticism begins with the believers’ certainty they can predict the
global climate with a computer model. The entire basis for the doomsday
climate change scenario is the hypothesis increased atmospheric carbon
dioxide due to fossil fuel emissions will heat the Earth to unlivable
temperatures.

In fact, the Earth has been warming very gradually for 300 years, since
the Little Ice Age ended, long before heavy use of fossil fuels. Prior
to the Little Ice Age, during the Medieval Warm Period, Vikings
colonized Greenland and Newfoundland, when it was warmer there than
today. And during Roman times, it was warmer, long before fossil fuels
revolutionized civilization.

The idea it would be catastrophic if carbon dioxide were to increase and
average global temperature were to rise a few degrees is preposterous.

Recently, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) announced
for the umpteenth time we are doomed unless we reduce carbon-dioxide
emissions to zero. Effectively this means either reducing the population
to zero, or going back 10,000 years before humans began clearing
forests for agriculture. This proposed cure is far worse than adapting
to a warmer world, if it actually comes about.

IPCC Conflict of Interest

By its constitution, the IPCC has a hopeless conflict of interest. Its
mandate is to consider only the human causes of global warming, not the
many natural causes changing the climate for billions of years. We don’t
understand the natural causes of climate change any more than we know
if humans are part of the cause at present. If the IPCC did not find
humans were the cause of warming, or if it found warming would be more
positive than negative, there would be no need for the IPCC under its
present mandate. To survive, it must find on the side of the apocalypse.

The IPCC should either have its mandate expanded to include all causes of climate change, or it should be dismantled.

Political Powerhouse

Climate change has become a powerful political force for many reasons.
First, it is universal; we are told everything on Earth is threatened.
Second, it invokes the two most powerful human motivators: fear and
guilt. We fear driving our car will kill our grandchildren, and we feel
guilty for doing it.

Third, there is a powerful convergence of interests among key elites
that support the climate “narrative.” Environmentalists spread fear and
raise donations; politicians appear to be saving the Earth from doom;
the media has a field day with sensation and conflict; science
institutions raise billions in grants, create whole new departments, and
stoke a feeding frenzy of scary scenarios; business wants to look
green, and get huge public subsidies for projects that would otherwise
be economic losers, such as wind farms and solar arrays. Fourth, the
Left sees climate change as a perfect means to redistribute wealth from
industrial countries to the developing world and the UN bureaucracy.

So we are told carbon dioxide is a “toxic” “pollutant” that must be
curtailed, when in fact it is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, gas and
the most important food for life on earth. Without carbon dioxide above
150 parts per million, all plants would die.

Human Emissions Saved Planet

Over the past 150 million years, carbon dioxide had been drawn down
steadily (by plants) from about 3,000 parts per million to about 280
parts per million before the Industrial Revolution. If this trend
continued, the carbon dioxide level would have become too low to support
life on Earth. Human fossil fuel use and clearing land for crops have
boosted carbon dioxide from its lowest level in the history of the Earth
back to 400 parts per million today.

At 400 parts per million, all our food crops, forests, and natural
ecosystems are still on a starvation diet for carbon dioxide. The
optimum level of carbon dioxide for plant growth, given enough water and
nutrients, is about 1,500 parts per million, nearly four times higher
than today. Greenhouse growers inject carbon-dioxide to increase yields.
Farms and forests will produce more if carbon-dioxide keeps rising.

We have no proof increased carbon dioxide is responsible for the earth’s
slight warming over the past 300 years. There has been no significant
warming for 18 years while we have emitted 25 per cent of all the carbon
dioxide ever emitted. Carbon dioxide is vital for life on Earth and
plants would like more of it. Which should we emphasize to our children?

Celebrate Carbon Dioxide

The IPCC’s followers have given us a vision of a world dying because of
carbon-dioxide emissions. I say the Earth would be a lot deader with no
carbon dioxide, and more of it will be a very positive factor in feeding
the world. Let’s celebrate carbon dioxide.

It’s obvious the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has way too much money to play with.

Following yesterday’s news that the EPA was funding research to reduce
air pollution emissions from cooking on propane fired barbecue grills,
the latest research grant is aimed at hotel showers.

Researchers at the University of Tulsa were awarded $15,000 to develop a
wireless device that will allow water use from showers to be measured
and reported to both the hotel guest via a smartphone and to hotel
management. According to the grant, hotel guests waste millions of
gallons of water each year and it’s hoped that guests will reduce their
water use when they realize the amount of water they are using.

The research on propane gas grills involves modifying the barbecue grill
design to reduce particulate matter that’s emitted during cooking
especially when the fire hits the grease from the food.

The Chemical and Environmental Engineering department at the University
of California, Riverside, received $15,000 to develop a two-step process
to reduce particulate matter during barbecuing. The fist step involves
reducing the amount of grease that hits the cooking flame by temporarily
inserting a tray between the meat and grill just before flipping. Since
the tray is cooler than the grill surface it will minimize the amount
of grease emitted from the meat, resulting in less smoke and
particulates released into the air and inhaled by the cook. The tray is
removed immediately after the meat is flipped.

The second step involves an air filtration system.

Only the EPA could devise projects that are so detached from reality.

Hotel guests pay a premium for lodging and will resist being spied on by
hotel management for water use. In many hotels, a small card is
displayed in the bathroom to remind the guests that water conservation
is important. Some hotels go a step further and suggest that guests can
opt out of having the towels and sheets replaced daily.

Addressing emissions from propane barbecues is even more ridiculous.
Backyard cooks are not going to go through an extra step before flipping
the meat. Not only does that step increase the possibility of getting
burned but the tray also becomes an additional item that needs to be
cleaned.

Finally, the elaborate filtration system would add to the cost and maintenance of the grill.

Funding make-work research projects exposes the incompetence and waste at the EPA.

Legislators from western Maryland oppose a bill that would hold fracking
companies accountable for any damage done during the process, saying it
would kill any chances of cashing in on natural gas deposits in the
state.

Spirited debate came to an abrupt halt when the Senate decided to seek
the state attorney general's opinion on disputed language in the bill.

Fracking extracts natural gas from Marcellus shale, which can be found
underneath of nearly all of Garrett County and parts of Allegany County.
A Towson University study finds tapping into Marcellus shale could
infuse billions into the western Maryland economy.

"I think the bottom line is this bill bans fracking, period, with this
language in there, the way it is now," Senate President Mike Miller
said.

A Senate committee struck strict liability language that fracking
supporters argue would have completely deterred interest in drilling.
They inserted a description of the process as an ultra-hazardous and
abnormally-dangerous activity.

Sen. George Edwards, R-Western Maryland, said he asked the state
attorney general's office for a legal opinion and plans to get what he
was told on the phone in writing.

"Simply put, this is just another way of saying strict liability," Edwards said.

"This 'ultra-hazardous' is a legal term of argument. What we've done in
the bill is to leave it up to our courts to determine the parameters of
liability based on the contamination of fracking," said Baltimore County
Democratic Sen. Bobby Zirkin, the bill's sponsor.

Edwards wants to strike those words. "This guts the bill and what
we are trying to do is protect our citizens," Zirkin said.

Edwards served on a state committee charged with coming up with recommending regulations that would help safeguard the practice.

"To pass something like this before you haven't even ruled on the
regulations, I believe, is putting the cart before the horse," Edwards
said.

"The better course of action was to define it in a way that would allow
our courts to determine the parameters of strict liability or their
liability standards," Zirkin said.

"For five years, this has been looked at," Edwards said.

"The bill simply says if we do it and if somebody gets hurt or if our
water is contaminated, then we are going to hold the right people
responsible," Zirkin said.

The attorney general's office released its advisory late Wednesday
afternoon, saying that describing the fracking process as an
ultra-hazardous and abnormally dangerous activity is strict liability
language.

Australia: New Leftist government of Victoria throws "Climate variability" out, brings "climate change" back in

Climate change is back on the political agenda in Victoria, with the
Andrews Government considering going it alone with a state-based
greenhouse gas emissions reduction target.

In a symbolic but significant gesture, Environment Minister Lisa Neville
has ordered bureaucrats in her department to "call it what it is -
climate change", banning the phrase "climate variability" preferred by
the former Napthine government.

In a speech to the Australian Coastal Councils Conference last week, Ms
Neville declared "we are putting climate change back on the agenda in
Victoria", promising to make the state a national and international
leader on the issue.

"In the absence of national leadership on this critical issue, we
understand as a State Government we must take the lead on climate change
and are committed to reinvigorating climate action within our state,
and restoring Victoria's status as a leader in Australia and
internationally," Ms Neville said.

Although the environment barely featured in the recent election
campaign, the comments suggest the Andrews government wants to make it a
central political issue. It is believed a push by the former Bracks
Labor government to introduce a state-based emissions trading scheme
could potentially be reinvigorated, with Victoria in discussions with
both South Australian and New South Wales.

Asked about such a possibility, Ms Neville told Fairfax Media it was too
early to make any commitments, suggesting the outcome of global climate
talks in Paris later this year would shape the state's policy.

As a first step, the state government is considering whether a Victorian emissions reduction target might be introduced.

"We are currently reviewing legislation and programs and whether a state
carbon emissions reduction target would be effective," Ms Neville told
the conference. "We're also refocusing the role of Sustainability
Victoria to assist communities to take practical action locally and
assessing the need for additional policies and programs."

Ms Neville has been picked to lead the national "climate adaptation
working group" of environment ministers. She said support for action on
climate change had slipped by 20 per cent in the last four years,
suggesting people have a hard time accepting solutions to a problem that
is essentially long term.

"We must recognise that we have been here before," she said. "We tried
to create that bigger picture federally and it fell over."

Given the global nature of the problem, business groups have expressed alarm about the possibility of unilateral action.

Australian Industry Group Victorian director Tim Piper said he had no
problem with Victoria taking on a leadership role. "But we also know
that unilateral regulations which don't bring the rest of the country
with us disadvantage Victorian companies and consumers and are bound to
fail," Mr Piper said.

Environment Victoria chief executive Mark Wakeham said he was optimistic
Labor was genuinely committed to "decarbonising" the economy.

"Labor's commitment to reintroducing an emissions reduction target for
the state, and its appetite for working with other states like SA and
NSW to increase and lead national efforts on decarbonisation is an
extremely positive development in the lead up to international climate
negotiations in Paris," Mr Wakeham said.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

22 March, 2015

"Arctic" apples could be better than organics

After years of research and extensive field testing, the Okanagan’s own GMO apple is going to the big leagues.

Genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) are routinely attacked by urban
organic activists in spite of the fact that not a single ailment has
ever been linked to this technology. And now, as a testament to the
baselessness of such attacks, the rights to the GMO Arctic Apple have
been purchased by the U.S. biotechnology company Intrexon (owners of GMO
salmon), for the princely sum of $41 million.

This acquisition stands as a textbook example of how to stand up to organic activists.

Rather than compromise, Neal Carter, the Summerland developer of this
non-browning apple, stood firm as organic activists claimed falsely that
a GMO apple threatened organic orchards. The only question that remains
is whether the organic industry will take former U.S. president Bill
Clinton’s advice from 1997 and include the Arctic Apple in organic
production.

Unlike some GMO crops that incorporate pesticides, the GMO Arctic Apple
could, in theory, be grown under organic management with composted
fertilizer and holistic pest management, according to the original
version of the world’s most-widely adopted organic standards – the USDA
National Organic Program.

I grew up on an organic farm and worked for five years as a
USDA-contract organic inspector. I left when the organic movement became
a bureaucratic scam designed to propel an anti-GMO, anti-scientific
political agenda.

I still support the true principles of organic production. But with
three-quarters of organic food being imported from countries like China,
and with 46 per cent testing positive for prohibited pesticides —
pesticides that do cause harm and can lead to death — it has long been
my position that the organic industry has a massive problem on its
hands, a problem that has nothing whatsoever to do with GMOs.

Organic crops are not tested. Record-keeping and record-checking are all that’s required to get a crop certified.

Imagine if we quit testing athletes at the Olympics. Do you think maybe
athletes might take this as a licence to cheat? This is how the anti-GMO
organic industry runs.

No wonder multimillionaire organic execs like John Mackey (Whole Foods)
and tax-subsidized activists like Ronnie Cummins (The Organic Consumers
Association) pretend GMOs threaten organic farms. By maligning this
field of science, they’ve carved-out a sizable niche for themselves,
giving consumers the false hope that they’re eating a better diet when
they purchase premium-priced, certified-organic food, all based on the
fact that it’s non-GMO.

The reality is quite the opposite.

The lack of organic field testing not only results in 46 per cent of
organic food testing positive for prohibited pesticides, but also in
un-composted fecal matter making its way into the organic food chain.

As Carter and his new corporate masters at Intrexon will surely attest,
this causes serious illness, and can lead to death. How is this
“organic” exactly?

GMO Golden Rice, papaya and brinjal are all examples of non-proprietary
(no patent) GMO crops that could be grown organically. The time is long
overdue for the organic industry to follow Clinton’s advice and embrace
GMOs. And what better place to start than with Carter’s GMO Arctic
Apple?

By standing up to organic “pseudo-science and naysaying fearmongers,”
Carter proves that when the enemies of science can’t beat you, they
might someday be forced to join you.

So, in the wake of Pielke Jr's comment yesterday, we know that Kerry
Emanuel has been citing a paper without disclosing that he had been
involved in its preparation. We know that the paper was commissioned and
paid for by green billionaire Tom Steyer.

The question that now springs to mind is whether Emanuel has disclosed
this activist cash in his academic work; in the wake of the recent
rumpus over Willie Soon's papers, readers will recall that
environmentalists are very keen that such disclosures are made.

Emanuel has disclosed in one of his papers that his own business, WindRiskTech, is involved in the same line of work:

"Conflict of interest statement: The technique used here to estimate the
level of tropical cyclone activity in CMIP5-generation climate models
is also used by a firm, WindRiskTech LLC, in which the author has a
financial interest. That firm applies the technique to estimate tropical
cyclone risk for various clients."

However, the argument made about Willie Soon's COI disclosures was that
all of his papers should disclose his funding from an oil company,
whether directly connected or not. So in this case I feel certain that
environmental activists will be loudly condemning Emanuel's failure to
disclose Emanuel's income stream from a green billionaire.

A few days ago I noted the comments of the UNFCCC's Christiana Figueres
about the UN's desire to transform the basis of daily economic life:

"This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting
ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to
change the economic development model that has been reigning for the,
at least, 150 years, since the industrial revolution."

I couldn't help but think of this when considering a couple of
developments on the underground coal gasification front over the
weekend. Firstly was the news that a successful UCG pilot plant in
Queensland is to be closed down after legislators decided that they
didn't want to deal with the flak from environmentalists. The second is
the vigorous attempts by greens to prevent UCG getting off the ground in
Scotland, with enormous pressure being applied to Holyrood politicians
to slam on the brakes.

This is very much a transformation of the economic development model
that has been reigning for 150 years. For most of that time, if you
wanted to start a new industrial business you started it. Now it is
necessary to suck up to politicians and to buy off the environmentalists
first. Free markets are replaced by crony capitalism and protection
rackets.

"Most important, she would not be focusing the narrative of her budget
around the deficit. We believe that austerity is a political project,
designed to reinforce the power of financial and corporate elites, and
achieve the long-held ambition of those on the right in politics of
bringing about the shrinking of the state. Closing the deficit is not
our prime economic objective; the important thing is to build a more
equal and ecologically sustainable economy. We would balance the current
account over time, but are prepared to borrow to invest".

Molly Scott Cato apparently doesn’t know the difference between the
current account (trade related) and the deficit (government budget
related).

Federal land ownership in the United States continues to grow despite
the federal government already owning more than half of most of the
western states. While some have been advocating for the return of this
land to the states or protect it from being closed off from oil and gas
operations, the Obama Administration has worked just as hard to increase
the federal government’s land grab. Contrast: As President Bush’s
second term as president was coming to an end, 4 million acres of land
in Alaska was released by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for
drilling and exploration. Seven years later, President Obama has
proposed to set aside 12 million acres in Alaska, designating it as
“wilderness” and off-limits to up to 42 billion barrels of oil.

Most recently, the Obama administration has proposed the largest
critical habitat designation ever, setting aside 226 million acres of
ocean off Alaska’s coastline (an area twice the size of California) to
protect the Arctic ringed seals who were listed as “threatened” under
the Endangered Species Act in 2012 after environmental activists
petitioned the Obama administration.

Even though NOAA says that oil and gas activities have occurred in areas
with protected species in the past, designating these Alaskan waters as
a critical habitat would mean that all oil and gas activity would have
to be evaluated based on how much it would impact ringed seals. Alaska’s
outer continental shelf is considered to be one of the world’s largest
untapped oil and gas reserves boasting as much as 27 billion barrels of
oil and 132 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Other federal lands expansion that slipped into the National Defense
Authorization Act (NDAA) would add 250,000 acres of new wilderness in
western states and put thousands more acres off limits to drilling and
mining in states.

In 2011, the U.S. Forest Service originally tried to ban fracking in the
1 million acre George Washington National Forest, but failed. It would
have been the first outright ban on the practice in a national forest.

Much of the land targeted for government takeover holds great oil and
natural gas resources which could provide jobs in the energy industry
and a flow of resources from our own American supply. Once those lands
become “monuments,” access to those natural resources is limited and in
the hands of the federal government. The government currently owns 650
million acres, or 29 percent of the nation’s total land.

The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 and the Northern Rockies
Ecosystem Protection Act (NREPA). The Omnibus bill was passed with over
100 land grab measures. The NREPA included federal takeover of nearly 24
million acres of land in the American west and northwest; however,
NREPA never made it out of the House subcommittee.

The ability of the White House to simply snatch land from under the feet
of the American people comes from the Antiquities Act of 1906. The Act
was initially intended to set aside small portions of land for monuments
and national parks, but has since been abused by lawmakers to control
large quantities of property. Federal government land control and land
acquisition takes away opportunities for development, particularly when
it comes to much needed energy resources. The land designated as
“monument” space could have created jobs, boosted the economy and
enhanced our energy security.

A Florida state employee has been reprimanded and told not to come to
work after Gov. Rick Scott’s (R) administration banned the use of the
terms “climate change” and “global warming.”

Earlier this month, reports said that officials in the Scott
administration ordered Florida Department of Environmental Protection
(DEP) administrators not to use the terms in documents or meetings
because they asserted that the climate science behind global warming was
not a “true fact.”

According to the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility
(PEER), Scott’s ban claimed its first victim earlier this month.

A press release from PEER said that Barton Bibler, who works as DEP Land
Management Plan Coordinator, had attended a Florida Coastal Managers
Forum and took notes when attendees discussed climate change.

“Mr. Bibler’s official notes on this meeting reflected all of that
discussion. He was directed to remove any hot button issues, especially
explicit references to climate change, and then was given a letter of
reprimand for supposedly misrepresenting that the ‘official meeting
agenda included climate change,’” the statement noted. “As he was given
the reprimand on March 9th, Mr. Bibler was told to not return to work
for two days which would be charged against his personal leave time.”

Before he was allowed to return to work, DEP required that that Bibler’s
doctor complete a “Medical Release Form,” and evaluate him for an
unspecified “medical condition and behavior.”

“Bart Bibler has fallen through a professional looking glass in a
Florida where the words ‘climate change’ may not be uttered, or even
worse, written down,” PEER Director Jerry Phillips explained. “If anyone
needs mental health screening it is Governor Rick Scott and other
officials telling state workers to pretend that climate change and
sea-level rise do not exist.”

PEER has called on the DEP Office of Inspector General to investigate the department for mishandling Bibler’s reprimand.

“Not just the employees but the citizens of Florida should demand a full
investigation into what the heck is going on inside DEP and whether we
can expect more cases like this,” Phillips insisted. “Under Governor
Scott, the Department of Environmental Protection functions like a gulag
where those in servitude who show any spark of honesty are simply made
to disappear.”

It was not immediately clear when, if ever, Bibler would be allowed to return to work.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

@RogerPielkeJr tweeted: "Merchants of Doubt in a nutshell: How a 90 yr-old man and a few dead friends fool the stupid American public. End of civilization results."

Jim Lakely adds:

Just in case anyone was wondering, Merchants of Doubt supposedly opened
Friday at the Bethesda Row Cinema. You can hardly get a more sympathetic
audience than Bethesda, Maryland. The film is no longer in the theater.
See here

Merchants of Doubt also premiered March 6 at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema in
New York's Upper West Side, the “cultural, intellectual hub” of the
city. It, too, is no longer playing there. See here

Who knows? Maybe it will pick up steam when it gets to the
video-on-demand market. But right now it’s looking like the “Heaven’s
Gate” or “Gigli” of global warming propaganda mockumentaries.

Joe Bast comments:

…but Chicago Tribune gives it four stars (and never mentions its native
sons… thanks a lot!) The review is behind a paywall, so it
probably won’t do a lot of harm.

Via email

Gore says climate-change deniers should pay political price

Former Vice President Al Gore on Friday called on SXSW attendees to
punish climate-change deniers, saying politicians should pay a price for
rejecting “accepted science.”

Gore said smart investors are moving away from companies tied to fossil
fuels and toward companies investing in alternative energy.

"We need to put a price on carbon to accelerate these market trends,”
Gore said, referring to a proposed federal cap-and-trade system that
would penalize companies that exceeded their carbon-emission limits.
“And in order to do that, we need to put a price on denial in politics."

SXSW Interactive brings together designers, developers, investors,
entrepreneurs and politicians for several days of talk about technology,
innovation and the future. The massive annual festival also includes
film and music portions.

Gore, who has made climate change an overriding theme since he lost to
George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election, made no mention of his
political future. He took several questions from Twitter after his
talk. None asked whether he was considering another run for the White
House.

He said he hoped his third SXSW appearance would help promote the fight
against climate change and to help put pressure on those who say it’s
not a problem.

“We have this denial industry cranked up constantly,” Gore said. “In
addition to 99 percent of the scientists and all the professional
scientific organizations, now Mother Nature is weighing in.”

He led a presentation on major weather events that he said could be
attributed to human activity. He linked troubles in the Middle East at
least partially to climate change, saying that drought drove more than a
million Syrian refugees into cities already crowded with refugees from
the Iraq war.

At one point, Gore’s presentation showed a slide of Pope Francis. “How about this Pope?” Gore said.

Cardinal Peter Turkson, a Vatican official who helped draft the Pope’s
anticipated encyclical on the environment, said recently that the planet
was getting warmer and that Christians needed to address the problem.
Gore said he looks forward to release of the Pope’s document, expected
in June or July.

“I’m not a Catholic,” Gore said, “but I could be persuaded to become one.”

At the end of January, the Obama administration announced the next step
in a long process that could result in the exploration and ultimate
extraction of oil-and-gas resources of the U.S. mid-Atlantic—something
the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Governors Coalition supports. On March
30, the 60-day comment period ends. If everything goes well, we could
see new American resources on the market in twenty years.

With the current oil abundance, it may seem like an odd time to be going
after more. However, the legal wheels that could allow limited access
to the vast, untapped oil resources move very slowly. Today’s market
conditions will fluctuate between now and 2035 when the global demand
for energy is expected to spike. Not to mention the increasingly
volatile situation in the Middle East, where new coalitions are already
being formed: Iran and Iraq, Saudi Arabia and South Korea—just to name
two. If one more beheading takes place or a bomb hits the right (or
wrong) target, the region could erupt, and the entire energy dynamic
would change. Considering the variables, American energy security is
always something worth pursuing.

The planning for the 2017-2022 OCS leasing program (5Y OCS) began June
2014, when the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) issued a request
for information and comments. Then, in January, it published the Draft
Proposed Plan; the Final Proposed Plan is anticipated in early 2017. 5Y
OCS proposes just one mid-Atlantic lease sale six years from now—and
even its future is precarious. The mid-Atlantic currently has no leases
in federal waters.

Explaining the process, Offshore magazine writes: “The OCS Lands Act
requires the Secretary of the Interior to prepare a five-year program
that includes a schedule of potential oil and gas lease sales and
indicates the size, timing and location of proposed leasing activity as
determined to best meet national energy needs, while addressing a range
of economic, environmental and social considerations.”

The BOEM estimates that the entire U.S. OCS holds approximately 90
billion barrels of oil and more than 400 trillion cubic feet of natural
gas which are technically recoverable. Based on 30- to 40-year-old data,
it estimates that the mid-Atlantic OCS may contain approximately 8-9
billion barrels of oil equivalent—which at current consumption rates
would be enough to meet South Carolina’s needs for 67 years. New seismic
and other geological and geophysical surveys are needed. Modern
practices and technologies will provide a more comprehensive view that
will help make informed decisions on using the resources.

While the proposal for possible mid-Atlantic development faces
opposition from environmental lobbyists, who call it a gift to
oil-and-gas interests and an anchor to the “dirty fossil fuels of the
past,” it enjoys a favorable political climate in the affected coastal
states, where polls show citizens support offshore drilling.

When the January announcement came out, North Carolina’s Republican
Governor Pat McCory, chairman of the OCS Governors Coalition, applauded
the proposal: “Responsible exploration and development of oil and gas
reserves off our coast would create thousands of good paying jobs, spur
activity in a host of associated industries, generate billions of
dollars in tax revenue and move America closer to energy independence.”
Even Virginia’s Democrat senators say the proposal is a “significant
step … that should result in safe, responsible development of energy
resources off the Virginia and mid-Atlantic coasts.”

Both the senators and governors want to see legislation passed that
would provide for the same type of revenue-sharing system currently
applied to the Gulf States to compensate local communities for
additional infrastructure, environmental protection, and other coastal
management needs generated by the new economic activity. If Congress
allows revenue sharing, Brydon Ross, Southeast director of the Consumer
Energy Alliance (CEA), predicts that it “could generate more than $10
billion in revenue combined for critical public budget infusions without
taxpayer dollars.”

Unfortunately, even though the draft proposal includes it and lawmakers
and citizens in the impacted states support it, future mid-Atlantic
resource development is not a sure thing. The Washington Post (WP) calls
the plan: “politically fraught.”

“This is a political plan,” Randall Luthi, president of the National
Ocean Industries Association, stated, “not a plan based on science and
resource data”—though he acknowledged it “is a small step in the right
direction.” Luthi added: “Our members are encouraged by the decision to
further analyze the mid- and south-Atlantic areas, which have not been
included in a leasing program for over two generations.”

5Y OCS is still in the early stages. Addressing the ongoing process,
Jeremy Kennedy, an attorney who focuses on domestic- and
international-energy transactions, explains: “Each of the steps … will
winnow the scope of the 2017-2022 leasing program.” The WP reports: BOEM
“could decide to narrow—but not expand—the proposed leasing area before
it is finalized.”

Kennedy sees that “little is certain at this time.” After all, the Obama
administration has killed previous potential lease sales. “Once
published,” he states, “planned lease sales can always be cancelled or
delayed by the Interior Department, president or Congress.”

Will the U.S. pursue development of our own offshore oil-and-natural gas
resources in the Atlantic, as Canada, Cuba, the Bahamas, and South
American Atlantic-coast countries do? No one really knows—but it is
something we should do.

Supporters of American energy security need to get involved in the
“political process” by making our voices heard. Add your public comment
before the March 30 deadline.

Pension and insurance funds should consider urgent divestment from “very
risky” coal assets and then gradually retreat from oil and gas, Ed
Davey, the UK energy and climate change secretary, has warned.

Throwing his weight behind the Guardian’s “Keep it in the ground”
campaign, he said a recent analysis which suggested 82% of coal reserves
must remain untouched if temperature increases are to be kept below 2C –
the widely accepted threshold for dangerous climate change – was
“realistic”.

Davey said it was not up to an energy minister to tell fund managers how
to run their businesses, but added that it was vital to introduce
regulatory transparency that would drive investors from fossil fuels to
renewables.

“If you invest in a lot of coal assets you may be over-exposed but it is
up to you to make that decision and for government to ensure the
information is available. The 82%... is quite a number. It seems to me
to be relatively realistic,” he argued.

“We are going to need a lot of oil and gas over the next two or three
decades but increasingly over time I think these oil and gas assets will
look risky as the world makes climate change treaties, as it will do,
as carbon pricing becomes more ubiquitous and companies cut down on
fossil fuel use far, far quicker than you expect and therefore this
argument is really, really significant.”

On Monday, the Guardian launched a campaign asking the two largest
charitable foundations in the world – the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation and the Wellcome Trust – to move their investments out of
fossil fuel companies. More than 72,000 people have signed the petition
calling for the foundations to divest.

Introducing the campaign, editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger wrote: “This
[campaign] will almost certainly be won in time: the physics is
unarguable. But we are launching our campaign today in the firm belief
that it will force the issue now into the boardrooms and inboxes of
people who have billions of dollars at their disposal.”

Davey wrote in a comment piece, “I’m strongly backing the Guardian’s
campaign to raise the profile of the divestment debate ahead of the
December climate change negotiations in Paris.”

His support comes amid signs that British pension funds, banks and
insurance companies have not changed their behaviour since a major
report warned last year they were much more financially exposed than
their European counterparts to overvalued or “stranded” fossil
fuels.....

So we have voted to adopt the politically correct move to reduce the energy content of our fuel.

Suppose we reduce the energy of our fuel by 10 percent, which will
increase the price. It will also take approximately 10 percent more
gallons to reach our destination, so we have a net gain of about zero,
except we have voted to give away more money.

It's a typical governmental solution to a probably non-existent problem.

There is plenty of room for politically incorrect opinion on the global
warming issue anyway. Global temperature measurements have remained
static for about 17 years. Most experts (?) for global warming work for
the government or for colleges with government grants. Those who did not
agree are no longer employed.

Hot spots and cold spots migrate around and if you want to prove global
warming, you measure the hot spots and ignore ice building up in the
Arctic. Some scientists say we are approaching the long leg of our
lopsided orbit and cooling can be expected.

Obviously, our treaty maker doesn't think danger is imminent or he
wouldn't give China 16 more years to continue building coal-fired plants
while we plan to destroy our ability to compete immediately.

The beguiling simplicity of the first sentence of an article in last
week’s Dominion Post by Wratt, Reisinger & Renwick (WRR) about the
IPCC’s view of climate change masks deep ambiguity and confusion about
what precisely the dangerous anthropogenic global warming (DAGW)
hypothesis is all about.

In that sentence WRR say that “Warming of the climate system is
unequivocal, and human influence on the climate system is clear.”

The statement that warming of the climate system is unequivocal is
disingenuous and ambiguous in equal measure, because whether the
statement is true or not depends entirely on the time period considered.

For instance, mild global warming occurred between the end of the Little
Ice Age (say 1860) and now, and also between 1979 and 1997. However, it
is also true that cooling of a degree or two has occurred since the
peak of the Mediaeval Warm Period (say 900 AD), and also since the
Holocene Climatic Optimum about 8000 years ago.

Planet Earth is therefore clearly on a long-term cooling trend within
which the 20th century multi-decadal warmings that so worry the IPCC
represent weather variability and oceanographic-atmospheric oscillations
more than they do long-term climate change.

It is also the case that no modern warming has occurred since 1997, an
18 year-long period during which atmospheric carbon dioxide levels
increased by 10%. That 10% increase represents fully 30% of all the
human-related emissions since the start of the industrial revolution –
all for no warming, remember.

Which brings us back to the real hypothesis that we wish to test. It is
not, as WRR seem to believe, that “warming of the climate system (is)
happening” but specifically that “dangerous global warming will be
caused by human-related carbon dioxide emissions”.

Science is about testing hypotheses, and the facts related above are a
primary test of the DAGW hypothesis as just stated. The hypothesis fails
that, and many other, empirical tests.

In addition, there is another primary hypothesis that WRR have failed to
address, which is the simplest hypothesis that explains all the facts –
called by scientists the null hypothesis. Given the highly variable
nature of both weather and climate through time, the simplest hypothesis
is that “observed modern changes in the climate system, or in plants
and animals affected by it, are due to natural causes unless and until
specific evidence indicates otherwise”. Neither WWR nor their favoured
IPCC scientific sources describe any evidence whatever that invalidates
that hypothesis.

WWR’s innocuous first sentence continues “…. human influence on the climate system is clear”.

Well, of course, for we can’t imagine a single scientist who would dispute that statement.

For example, the building of towns and cities alike replaces natural
vegetation and land surfaces with industrial materials, thus providing a
heat trap for solar radiation and causing the local warming that is
termed the urban heat island effect. Similarly, in the countryside,
farmers cut down dark-coloured native vegetation and replace it with
light-coloured crops such as wheat. These fields now reflect more
incoming solar radiation than did the native forest, which results in
local, human-induced cooling.

Adding up the various human warming and cooling influences around the
globe must result in a figure that represents the net human effect on
global temperature. But the effect is so small that it has yet to be
calculated accurately, let alone measured; indeed, we do not even know
whether the net human effect worldwide is one of warming or cooling.

The issue then is not one of “is there human influence” on climate, but
of “how great is the human influence and what sign does it have”?

As summarised in the reports of both the IPCC and NIPCC (Nongovernmental
International Panel on Climate Change), thousands of scientists have
expended hundreds of billions of dollars researching this question since
1988 (formation year of the IPCC) without any evidence emerging that
the human effect rises above the noise in the global temperature signal,
or that any of the manifold changes in the natural world around us
today are being caused by human-related carbon dioxide emissions.

Given that it has taken us almost 600 words to dissect and correct just
the single opening sentence of the WRR article, readers will appreciate
that it would take nearly a book to adequately discuss, and in many
instances correct, the remainder of their tendentious article.

For interested readers, we have provided a point by point commentary on
the eleven points enumerated by WRR at this web address –
http://tinyurl.com/kqwqusk Here, we conclude by offering just a brief
summary statement of the remainder of the WRR article - which is this.

WRR (and the IPCC) present many statements of fact with which we, and
many other scientists, agree. In interpreting those facts, however, WRR
fail to deploy them to test the DAGW hypothesis, fail to negate the null
hypothesis, often treat evidence in an anecdotal way, and reveal a
partiality for adopting alarmist environmental projections from
known-to-be-faulty deterministic computer models.

Bryan Leyland is an engineer who specializes in and writes about
renewable energy matters. Bob Carter is a geologist and environmental
scientist, and Chief Scientific Advisor to the International Climate
Science Coalition. Both are also authors of the recent book “Taxing
Air”, which discusses all sides of the global warming issue.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

19 March, 2015

Chris Mooney assumes what he has to prove

Mooney is a science popularizer who regularly spins all findings as
supportive of the Green/Left. Logic is not however his strong
suit. He implies below that recent bad weather is due to global
warming ("greenhouse gas emissions"). But how can it be when there
has been no global warming for 18 years? It is to be expected
that local temperature changes -- as in the Arctic -- will have some
effects but a local effect is not a global effect. I have to put
it very simply for the likes of Mooney

Is the rapid melting of the Arctic paying us back for our greenhouse gas
emissions by messing with the jet stream — which carries weather
through the northern hemisphere? And could that, in turn, explain recent
breakouts of extremes all around the northern half of the world —
including recent snowfall in the east coast?

That’s what Rutgers University’s Jennifer Francis has argued in a series
of papers going back to 2012 — but there has been quite a lot of
criticism. Several distinguished climate researchers even wrote to
Science magazine in early 2014 contesting the notion, saying that “we we
do not view the theoretical arguments underlying it as compelling.”

And yet stubbornly, more published research keeps appearing and seeming
to add support to the idea that the warming Arctic is changing the jet
stream. That statement comes with an exclamation point on Thursday in
particular, with a new paper out in Science that confirms many of
Francis’s ideas and applies them not just to extreme winter weather but,
in some ways even more troubling, to extremes of summer heat.

The new paper, by Dim Coumou and two colleagues at the Potsdam Institute
for Climate Impact Research and the University of Potsdam in Germany,
finds that the melting Arctic is indeed messing with the jet stream (as
well as the broader atmospheric circulation) and our weather. But it
also goes further by asserting that there’s a strong effect in the
summer in particular. The progress of weather is slowing during the
summer, the authors assert, and the result could be a very deadly one —
including “more persistent heat waves in recent summers.”

Or as the researchers put it, a weaker jet stream and atmospheric
circulation in the summer, caused by a reduced differential in
temperature between the equator and the north pole as the Arctic warms
faster than the mid-latitudes, “has made weather more persistent and
hence favored the occurrence of prolonged heat extremes.”

The study, said Francis — who is familiar with the work but was not
involved in the research — not only confirms her broad idea, but does so
by examining a new and more detailed mechanism. The Potsdam researchers
looked at an atmospheric feature called “eddy kinetic energy,” which,
as Francis explained, basically refers to the winds swirling around
regions of high and low pressure. Those winds have decreased, the paper
finds.

“That’s why they’re saying that it’s more likely to have summer extreme
events,” Francis said. “Because the weather just is not changing as
much, and the weather systems themselves are just more stagnant and
lethargic.”

The new study points in particular to the devastating 2010 summer heat
wave in Russia. “By late July and early August, numerous cities
witnessed a crescendo of record breaking daily readings near 40ºC, more
than +10ºC warmer than what would normally have been experienced at this
warmest time of year,” noted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration at the time. The resulting death toll could have been as
high as 55,000.

So how did such an extreme come about? The new paper notes that “the
record breaking July temperatures over Moscow were associated with
extremely low [eddy kinetic energy].” In other words, there was just not
enough circulation of air to bring in cooler temperatures.

“If this whole circulation slows down and there’s less energy in these
storms, then basically we get more persistent weather situations, which
can lead to some extreme heat waves,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, also a
researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research but not
one of the study’s authors.

So what’s the upshot for the ongoing debate over whether the Arctic is,
indeed, messing with weather in the mid-latitudes all over the globe? “I
think the balance of evidence is kind of moving towards confirming that
there is this influence of the Arctic,” said Rahmstorf.

“It’s making the pile of evidence I think look pretty substantial,” added Francis.

That doesn’t mean the debate is over or clinched. But it does mean that
questions over precisely how the rapidly melting Arctic is feeding back
into the weather we all experience are getting more pressing and
pertinent than ever.

More prophecy and modelling. None of their prophecies have come
true yet so why should we expect this to be an exception? And the
prophecy is basically a straight-line extrapolation -- and climate does
not change in a straight line way. It goes up and down in largely
unpredictable ways

Just when it looked like things might be quiet on the climate change
research front for a couple of days in terms of notable findings, there
was this: "We find that trends in greenhouse-gas and aerosol emissions
are now moving the Earth system into a regime in terms of multi-decadal
rates of change that are unprecedented for at least the past 1,000
years."

That's what researchers wrote in a letter published online March 9 in
Nature Climate Change. Their work explored the rates of change in
global-mean temperatures in 40-year periods extending through 2020,
based on past climate records and future projections.

What they found, as mentioned in the quote above, is that rates of
global warming are set to accelerate at a pace not seen for thousands of
years.

Climate data for the past millennium show that global temperatures have
fluctuated by 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit each decade. In the past 40 years,
the trend's ramped up, angling toward 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit per decade
but remaining roughly within historical boundaries.

However, the researchers project that will change in the next five years
(2020), with warming rates surpassing what's been seen in the past
1,000 years -- and perhaps even the past 2,000. If greenhouse gas
emissions continue at current levels, rates will keep rising to hit 0.7
degrees Fahrenheit per decade. The researchers expect the warming rates
to continue to be that high through 2100.

World regions that can expect to be the first to experience these
accelerated warming trends will be the Arctic, North America and Europe.

And in using a timescale of 40 years, the researchers put the results
into a context relevant to "the lifetime of much of human
infrastructure," they wrote. And in terms of human socio-economic
infrastructure, the implication is time is of the essence for Arctic
dwellers, North Americans and Europeans to start thinking about
adaptation planning.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s “Clean Power Plan” would command
every State by the year 2016 to develop a package of EPA-approved laws
requiring coal-fired power plants to shut down or reduce operations,
consumers and businesses to use less electricity and pay more for it,
and utilities to shift from coal to other energy sources - a total
overhaul of each State’s way of life.

Noncomplying States would face sanctions, including the potential loss
of federal highway funds, and the takeover of their energy sectors by an
inflexible federal plan of uncertain scope that would inflict
significant economic damage.

EPA lacks the statutory and constitutional authority to adopt its plan.
The obscure section of the Clean Air Act that EPA invokes to support its
breathtaking exercise of power in fact authorizes only regulating
individual plants and, far from giving EPA the green light it claims,
actually forbids what it seeks to do.

Even if the Act could be stretched to usurp state sovereignty and
confiscate business investments the EPA had previously encouraged and in
some cases mandated, as this plan does, the duty to avoid clashing with
the Tenth and Fifth Amendments would prohibit such stretching.

EPA possesses only the authority granted to it by Congress. It lacks
“implied” or “inherent” powers. Its gambit here raises serious questions
under the separation of powers, Article I, and Article III, because EPA
is attempting to exercise lawmaking power that belongs to Congress and
judicial power that belongs to the federal courts.

The absence of EPA legal authority in this case makes the Clean Power
Plan, quite literally, a “power grab.” EPA is attempting an
unconstitutional trifecta: usurping the prerogatives of the States,
Congress and the Federal Courts - all at once. Burning the Constitution
should not become part of our national energy policy.

Britain’s former top climate envoy has delivered a scathing review of
the climate outlook of the fossil fuel industry, in general, and of oil
giant Shell, in particular, whose global warming strategy he described
as narcissistic, paranoid, and psychopathic in an open letter to the
Dutch company’s CEO, Ben Van Beurden.

John Ashton, who served as Special Representative for Climate Change at
the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) from 2006 to 2012,
delivered the withering missive last week, in response to a speech by
Van Beurden that called on his peers to be “less aloof” and “more
assertive” on climate change.

But Ashton, who is the founding CEO of Third Generation Environmentalism
(E3G), said the Shell boss’s speech was characterised by a cognitive
dissonance that said more about the state of mind of the fossil fuel
industry than the external conditions that prompted the Shell CEO to
speak out.

He said that while oil giants like Shell accepted the “moral obligation”
to respond to climate change, it was not considered to be a threat to
the industry’s march of progress, which was expected to continue
indefinitely.

“It is in truth not your fault that climate change is a hard problem,”
Ashton wrote. “Though your industry must bear some responsibility for
our failure so far to face it, that is not exclusively your fault
either.

“But the choices of your generation of CEOs will be decisive, not only
for you as corporations but for the eventual success or failure of our
response to climate change.

“That is why you will be held relentlessly to account for those choices;
why what you said last month invites forensic scrutiny.”

Ashton’s long and extraordinary letter is well worth reading in its
entirety, but we’ve excerpted some of the best bits below, in case you
need convincing…

“As we stride forward, a golden thread of growth links the size of the
economy, demand for energy, and demand for oil and gas. This should
continue indefinitely. Yours will remain “an industry that truly powers
economies”, as “the world’s energy needs will underpin the use of fossil
fuels for decades to come”.

“You do not, it appears, see climate change as a threat to the steady
march. But you fear we might be overzealous. Excessive concern for the
climate might lead us to break the golden thread by constraining the
combustion of your products.”

“Your response is that we should ease off on climate. We can have a
transition but it cannot transform. The aim, in any meaningful
timeframe, should not be an energy system that is carbon neutral nor
even low carbon.

Instead we must settle for “lower-carbon”, whatever that means, to allow
us the “higher energy” that “makes the difference between poverty and
prosperity”.”

“That is the story of your mask: a manifesto for the oil and gas status
quo, justified by the unsupported claim that the economic and moral cost
of departing from it would exceed the benefit in climate change
avoided.

Beneath the mask is the face. Its story is encoded in language and tone, and it does not match the mask.

Climate change is a mirror in which we will all come to see the best and
the worst of ourselves. In that mirror you seem to see the energy
system you have done so much to build and to find it so intoxicating
that you cannot contemplate the need now to build a different one.

There is a touch of narcissism in the story of your face.

The paranoiac fears conspiracies that do not exist. You fear a non-existent conspiracy to bring about your sudden death.

There is a touch of paranoia in the story of your face.

The psychopath displays inflated self-appraisal, lack of empathy, and a tendency to squash those who block the way.”

“I do not know what the new business model looks like.
You won’t begin to know yourselves until you accept that as an
instrument of the common good the old one is already dead........

National Geographic’s latest cover story generated lots of attention for
comparing climate change skeptics to those who fear vaccinations,
disbelieve NASA’s moon landing, and oppose water fluoridation.

The author bemoans the fact that only 40% of Americans (according to Pew
Research Center) “accept that human activity is the dominant cause of
global warming,” asking how so many “reasonable people doubt science.”
Dubbing climate change one of the “precepts of science,” the author
opines that climate change skepticism is “dispiriting” for anyone
considered a “rationalist.” How could so many dismiss “settled science”?

Actually, there’s a healthy reason that the public has come to distrust
government warnings and the scientific experts: they are often wrong.

Ironically, National Geographic’s sermon on settled science could have
hardly come at a more inopportune time. In recent months, leading
scientists have reversed themselves and have admitted their expert
findings and advice were wrong on eating fat. After decades of telling
us not to do so, we now learn that fat can be good for your diet and for
weight loss. What we all thought to be true based on the expert
testimonies, turned out to be precisely the opposite of the truth. Oops.

This kind of reversal happens all the time in the pursuit of scientific
truths. Forty years ago the experts warned of a coming ice age, now they
are absolutely certain the earth is warming – and some of the same
“experts” were on board both scares. National Geographic even
acknowledges this inconvenient fact, but explains that even though the
climatologists were all wrong several decades ago, this somehow actually
helps make the case for global warming.

Wait, for a scientific fact to be true, it has testable and refutable.
But if any weather pattern confirms “climate change,” then by definition
it is neither refutable nor is it testable. That’s convenient.

Here is how the magazine derisively describes one reason why there is
such widespread skepticism on climate change: “Many people in the United
States—a far greater percentage than in other countries—retain doubts
about that consensus [of global warming] or believe that climate
activists are using the threat of global warming to attack the free
market and industrial society generally.”

Wait. It is an irrefutable truth that many climate change activists ARE
using the climate change issue as a means of attacking free market
capitalism. This past summer major environmental groups gathered in
Venezuela to solve leading environmental problems like global warming,
concluding in the Margarita Declaration “The structural causes of
climate change are linked to the current capitalist hegemonic system.”
In fact, the statement itself included the motto, “Changing the system,
not the climate.”

So how is it delusional paranoia to believe that the climate change
industry wants to shut down capitalism when the movement plainly states
that this is their objective? And how can a movement be driven by
science when its very agenda violates basic laws of economics? I am no
scientist, but I am first in line in questioning the wisdom and
motivation of a movement whose purpose is to steer the U.S. economy off a
cliff toward financial ruin.

Americans are also naturally skeptical that government can do anything
to achieve the grandiose task of changing the weather of the planet –
because the U.S. government can’t even do simple things like balance its
budget, deliver the mail, or run a health care website. If global
warming ever becomes a planetary threat, it will undoubtedly be solved
by technological progress – not repressive government action – and this
is dependent on the very free enterprise system the left wants to tear
down.

As for the future of our “industrial society,” the global warming agenda
of shifting away from cheap and abundant fossil fuels and forcing
nations to adopt much more expensive and less reliable wind and solar
powered energy is a frontal assault against industrialization. One of
the surest ways of reducing industrial output and moving hundreds of
millions of people into poverty is to make energy more expensive. Now we
are told that in order to save the planet, we must do just that. The
left is promoting the obvious fairy tale that we can somehow power our
$18 trillion industrial economy in America with windmills. Europe tried
the green energy route and it was an economic fiasco.

One other point on the issue: if there were no ulterior motive of the
greens and their only agenda was to stop the rise of the oceans by
reducing greenhouse gas emissions, then most honest and rational people
would say the solution is for America to build perhaps 40 nuclear power
plants over the next decade. In 2013, coal provided just under 1.6
million gigawatts of electricity. One nuclear power plant (such as South
Korea’s 6 reactor Yonggwang plant) can provide 50,000 gigawatts
annually. So production from just 40 of these plants would equal the
entire amount of electricity produced from coal. This would provide
cheap and abundant electric power with almost no greenhouse emissions
and would not slow industrial progress. But most in the climate change
crowd hate nuclear power.

Moving on, National Geographic next makes this claim: “Senator James
Inhofe of Oklahoma, one of the most powerful Republican voices on
environmental matters, has long declared global warming a hoax. The idea
that hundreds of scientists from all over the world would collaborate
on such a vast hoax is laughable.”

Laughable? The entire history of the green movement is full of grand
hoaxes and even catastrophic advice, dating back to the modern-day birth
of this movement with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. This was the green
anthem which played a big part in the banning of DDT around the world –
a move which contributed to millions of Africans losing their lives
from malaria. The lesson of the false DDT scare is that there are very
real dangers to false scares and faulty science.

As for the claim that scientists would never “collaborate on a hoax,”
what about the scandal of climategate, which the left to this day
pretends didn’t happen? Shouldn’t the fact that some the leading climate
change researchers were caught red-handed manufacturing evidence and
suppressing data even cause some degree of skepticism by the media and
the scientific community as to the validity of the “science”?

Then there is the reality that nearly every environmental scare of the
1970s and backed by hundreds of scientists as well as media like
National Geographic, was proven to be a hoax? In the 1970s we were told
that the world was overpopulated, running out of energy, food, water,
minerals, getting more polluted, and that the end result would be
massive poverty famine and global collapse. Every aspect of this
collective scientific wisdom was spectacularly wrong.

In 1980, a “collaboration” of hundreds of the top scientists in the
United States government issued a report called The Global 2000 Report
to the President which was a primal scream that in every way life on
earth would be worse by 2000 because the world would run out of oil,
gas, food, farmland, and so on. Just a few brave souls like Julian Simon
and Herman Kahn dared to contradict this conventional wisdom. They were
disparaged then – just as climate change skeptics are today – as
dangerous lunatics.

Yet on every score these iconoclasts were right and the green scientific
consensus was wrong. What was the cost? Start with the fact that
hundreds of millions of Chinese – mostly girls – are demographically
missing today because of the barbaric one child policy, which the greens
all supported as a way to save the planet.

False scares lead to a massive misallocation of resources as governments
chase nonexistent goblins, which leaves less money for solving real
societal ills. For one-tenth of the cost of the global warming crusade,
if the world concentrated on bringing clean water, cheap energy, and
schools to desperately poor areas of the world, child mortality would
fall dramatically and living standards would rise.

The final insult by the National Geographic article is this: “It’s very
clear, however, that organizations funded in part by the fossil fuel
industry have deliberately tried to undermine the public’s understanding
of the scientific consensus by promoting a few skeptics.” So everyone
who dares question the climate change theology has been bought off by
industry polluters, but the climate change research brigades are pure as
snow. Really?

In 2010, Climate Depot identified more than 1,000 international
scientists, including many current and former United Nations
International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientists, who voiced
skepticism about the climate change consensus and the IPCC – a consensus
which National Geographic seems to think is the gospel of global
warming. Are 1,000 scientists “a few,” and are they all bought off by
the Koch brothers?

No doubt industry funds some of these skeptics, but it is also true that
the U.S. government and private foundations are providing billions of
dollars of funding – Obama wants $8 billion this year – for climate
change research and activities. Needless to say, the best way to get
defunded and to go unnoticed is to conclude global warming isn’t
happening. Would anyone want to fund the green-industrial complex if the
earth’s temperature weren’t on a catastrophic path of warming or
cooling?

National Geographic concludes by saying the debate is over on climate
change. Period. What is clear is that this “settled science” argument
isn’t meant to advance scientific inquiry and understanding, but to shut
it down. What is the left so afraid of that they want to cut off all
debate and disparage all who question the consensus. Once liberals
believed in “questioning authority,” now they insist on universal
allegiance to every conventional wisdom.

Once when I was at The Wall Street Journal, I wrote a column about the
myth of disappearing polar bears. (Here we have yet another example of
how the left simply manufactures false crises to advance an ideological
agenda). After I spoke with one of the few experts in Alaska who is
involved in the population counts of the polar bears and he reported to
me that the population is up not down, he called me after the article
ran in a panic and said his job was in jeopardy for reporting the
politically incorrect facts. This is the real tragedy of science today:
political correctness now has invaded the research facilities.

Scientific truth is the first casualty in ideological crusades like that
of climate change. I am in no position to know whether it is happening
or not, but as with half of Americans I question this settled science,
if only because of the Stalinist approach which commands everyone to
believe. The tolerance movement refuses to tolerate a minority opinion.
By pounding skeptics as imbeciles, stooges of industry, and right wing
republican ideologues, National Geographic has managed to set back
science, not advance it.

The Royal Society has misrepresented current thinking on climate change
by presenting new theories as established facts and leaving out evidence
that doesn’t support man made global warming dogma, a group of climate
scientists has claimed.

In December, the Royal Society published a Short Guide to Climate
Science, which it presented as a definitive guide to all things climate
science. It asks and answers 20 questions, some of which display clear
bias within the phrasing of the question, such as “How do scientists
know that recent climate change is largely caused by human activities?”
and “Climate is always changing. Why is climate change of concern now?”

In response, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has produced
The Small Print – What the Royal Society Left Out, in order to bring
balance to the evidence base. It takes the Royal Society’s original 20
questions in turn and present a “fuller picture” on each.

For example, in response to the question “What role has the Sun played
in climate change in recent decades?”, The Royal Society says “The Sun
has not played a major role in recent climate change. The Sun provides
the primary source of energy driving Earth’s climate system and
variations in the energy emitted by the Sun affect Earth’s climate.
However, satellite measurements since the late 1970s show no overall
increase in the energy emitted by the Sun, while the climate system has
warmed.”

But the GWPF refutes this answer as too simplistic, saying: “It is
frequently claimed that the Sun has not played a major role in recent
climate change because the overall energy emitted by the sun has changed
little. This is simplistic. There is significant evidence that the Sun
has played an important role in climate change, and over the 20th
century in particular.

“Quantifications of these changes suggest forcing comparable to
anthropogenic forcing. While variability of total solar irradiance may
be small, variability of specific components of solar output can be
large, and some of these are believed to affect the climate through
mechanisms other than direct heating, for example by influencing cloud
formation. These effects are a matter of current inquiry.”

The contents of the Royal Society’s report is not the only criticism
that the GWPF has of the document. “The authors who wrote the guide were
not identified. Nor were the members of the Royal Society asked whether
they endorsed it or not. […] We have no way of knowing how many Royal
Society Fellows actually agree with it,” Prof Ross McKitrick, the
chairman of the GWPF’s Academic Advisory Council said. By contrast, the
GWPF lists all thirteen authors of its report, all of whom endorse the
contents.

This weekend, a fellow of the Royal Society confirmed that the
organisation, which enjoys a presitigious history stretching back over
350 years, displayed “selectivity” when presenting evidence on the
climate change debate.

“I produced a paper that urged the Society’s council to distance itself
from the levels of certainty being expressed about future warming,” Prof
Michael Kelly said. “I said it ought at least to have a ‘plan B’ if the
pause should last much longer, so calling the models into still more
serious question. I got a polite brush-off.”

Prof McKitrick said “many commentators were concerned that the [Royal
Society’s] guide was profoundly misleading, misrepresenting major points
while overlooking some of the key issues and question marks over the
science, glossing over them as if they were of little consequence.

“In a time of universal overconfidence, to be willing to state what is
not known is an essential, albeit controversial, duty of scientists.

“[Our] report attempts to give a more accurate picture of climate
science and to add in the caveats and to explain the gaps in our
knowledge over which the Royal Society guide drew a veil.

“The Royal Society, quite properly, does not draw policy conclusions
from the meager science they present (and misrepresent), but they, most
assuredly, know that others will.”

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

18 March, 2015

Warmists promoting skeptics again

There's no such thing as bad publicity. Some excerpts from a film review below that give Marc Morano a good plug

"Merchants of Doubt," directed by Robert Kenner, focuses on corporate
spin doctors such as those who deny the existence of human-made climate
change. (Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics)
In Washington, everyone’s always pushing something.

There’s Robert Kenner, sitting in the private banquet room of a
Georgetown hotel, in front of a poster for his new documentary,
“Merchants of Doubt,” which he has come to town, he says, to “sell.”
That choice of words is fitting. Kenner’s movie — a follow-up to the
filmmaker’s acclaimed, Oscar-nominated “Food, Inc.” — is all about
marketing.

The germ of Kenner’s latest project, a simultaneously entertaining and
inciting exposé of professional charlatanism — practiced, most
saliently, by those hired to make the case that global warming isn’t
real, or at least that there is no scientific consensus on it — sprouted
in the director’s head during the making of “Food, Inc.”

Kenner, 65, does admire people such as Marc Morano, a professional
climate-change denier and founder of the Climate Depot Web site who is,
arguably, the star of Kenner’s film. After a stint in the 1990s
reporting for Rush Limbaugh, Morano worked briefly as a flack for Sen.
James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), who famously called global warming a “hoax.”

These days, Morano most often pops up on TV shows arguing against the
science of climate change. In front of Kenner’s camera, Morano makes for
a jocular — and weirdly unapologetic — advocate for what can only be
called ignorance.

“I’m not a scientist,” he jokes, flashing a huge, telegenic grin, “but I play one on TV.”

He also plays dirty. In “Doubt,” Morano recounts with glee how he has
published the e-mail addresses of climate scientists, subjecting them to
intimidation and flaming attacks from anonymous critics. (Several of
the abusive e-mails are read aloud in the film by their recipients, in
an evocation of Jimmy Kimmel’s “Celebrities Read Mean Tweets” segments.)
It makes for a semi-serious tone that masks Kenner’s more sobering
message: We’re routinely being lied to, by people who are darn good at
it.

But Kenner doesn’t care that other global-warming deniers are unlikely
to buy a ticket to his film, let alone be converted by it.

He is optimistic that the last vestiges of climate resistance will one
day be swept away, likening it to the sea change that has occurred over
the past several years in popular attitudes about same-sex marriage and
other once-contentious issues.

Now that meteorological winter 2014-2015 is in the books (though the
season isn’t formally recognized as ended until the Spring Equinox on
March 20), anti-fossil fuel gurus are warning that, despite frigid cold
spells over the Eastern United States, overall it was the 19th warmest
on record. “Averaged together,” weather.com reported, “temperatures
across the country this winter were 2.1 Fahrenheit degrees above the
20th-century mean, according to NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.”

Moreover, based on measurements from the National Snow & Ice Data
Center, seasonal ice buildup in the Arctic is on pace to set a new
record low. So it’s officially time to freak out, right? Well, no.
Before you start preparing for The Great Climate Apocalypse, consider
this:

“The Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in
some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a
report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen,
Norway.

"Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all
point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of
temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that
scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29
minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream
still very warm.

"Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones,
the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have
entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the
eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have
never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old
seal fishing grounds.”

That sounds awfully familiar because that’s exactly what alarmists are
clamoring about today. Only the excerpt is from an article published by
the Associated Press on Nov. 2 … 1922. Nearly a century later, it still
appears the climate is, well, repetitious. As are propagandists on a
mission.

Russian scientists have now discovered seven giant craters in remote
Siberia, a geologist told AFP on Thursday, adding that the mysterious
phenomenon was believed to be linked to climate change.

The discovery of an enormous chasm in a far northern region known to
locals as “the end of the world” in July last year prompted speculation
it had been caused by a meteorite or even aliens.

A YouTube video of the hole went viral and a group of scientists was dispatched to investigate.

“We have just learnt that in Yakutia, new information has emerged about a
giant crater 1km [0.6 miles] in diameter,” the deputy director of the
Oil and Gas Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
Vasily Bogoyavlensky, told AFP.

He said this brought to seven the number of reported pits.
“Footage allows us to identify minimum seven craters, but in fact there
are plenty more,” he said.

All of the craters have been discovered in the remote, energy-rich Yamalo-Nenetsky region in north-western Siberia.

Scientists say that rather than aliens or meteorites, the holes are
caused by the melting of underground ice in the permafrost, which has possibly been sped up by rising temperatures due to global warming.

“The phenomenon is similar to the eruption of a volcano,” said
Bogoyavlensky. As the ice melts, methane gas is released, which
builds up pressure until an explosion takes place, leading to the
formation of a crater.

The scientists are still trying to estimate what danger, if any, is
posed by the holes. Methane is extremely flammable and at least one of
the craters is situated near an exploited gas deposit.

An expedition is planned to the latest crater discovered to determine if it was formed in the same manner.

It may be hard to identify other craters which may have formed into lakes over time, said Bogoyavlensky.

“When they appear the craters are empty, and little by little they fill
up with water. In the space of two or three years they become lakes and
it is difficult to study them.”

He said some may have formed dozens or hundreds of years ago, but went unnoticed in such remote regions.

Equatorial Glaciers show what drives the climate on earth. It is not CO2. It is the water cycle

Written by Dr Klaus L.E.

Think equator, the place on earth where each day has 12 hours of
daylight and 12 hours of night, no winter or summer seasons, just a
tropical paradise on earth. Except for the higher elevations, where
there are glaciers. Yes, real natural ice right there on the ground
courtesy of Mother Nature. furtwangler glacier

Let’s look at the glaciers near the earth’s equator and you’ll find some
on each continent that straddles the equator, i.e. Asia, Africa, and
South America. They are:

Of course, climate alarmist prophecies predicted the Furtwängler Glacier
to have long disappeared by now. After all, according to Wikipedia, its
size was only six hectares in the year 2000. Surely, the additional
umpteen ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere since then should have made it
disappear entirely by now. What’s the hold-up?

Then there are more glaciers on Mt. Kilimanjaro too, like the Rebmann
Glacier on the opposite side of the mountain and even larger than the
Furtwängler Glacier . You can visit them all, guided tour packages are
available from several outfits, like
http://www.climbmountkilimanjaro.com/about-the-mountain/glaciers/ and
https://www.gadventures.com.

Perhaps you are wondering why there are any glaciers near the equator to
begin with? Isn’t it all tropical paradise with shimmering white-sand
beaches and some steaming jungle interiors? Obviously, the answer is NO
and the reason is the third dimension.

The Third Dimension

That’s the height or elevation above sea level and it is much more
critical than the latitude of your position on the globe. If you have
flown in a modern airplane you’ll probably know what I mean. The little
flat screen in front of you allows you to not just to watch movies but
check up on your current location and the outside temperature. At
typical cruising altitudes of 35,000 ft. (11 km) the temperature is
around MINUS 40 F (-40 C). It does not matter whether it’s hot or cold
at sea level, at an elevation of 5 km or so the temperature is around
freezing and it decreases rapidly the higher you go.

Therefore, you are not likely to see much liquid water at those
elevations. It is either frozen or invisible vapor and seasonal
shrinkage of such high altitude glaciers and snowfields is by
sublimation, the process of direct change from the solid to the vapor
state. However, this process is not restricted to high altitudes.

You can observe it just as well in low elevation areas that have snow
cover in late winter or early spring when the air temperature is still
well below freezing. Then the vapor pressure of the “water” molecules in
the snow is greater than that in the air and causes the snow to
volatilize directly without prior melting.

Even so, there is a large amount of energy required to volatilize the
ice. That energy comes from the sun via radiation, from the air and the
remaining water, ice, or snow. How much energy? Let’s do a simple
calculation of the water cycle.

Water Cycle

Worldwide, the energy flux between solid or liquid water and its vapor is gigantic.

You can get an idea of that from the total world river flow, estimated
to 1,000,000 cubic meter (m^3) each second; the Amazon River alone has a
flow of 200,000 m^3/s. That adds up to 3x10^13 m^3 per year, or 30,000
cubic kilometer (km^3) per year. Add to that the amount of rainfall on
the ocean surface and the amount evaporated from the land surface and
the number is more like 100,000 km^3 or 25,000 cubic miles of water that
gets evaporated in a year.

Now you know what drives the climate on earth. It is not CO2. It is the water cycle.

Recent global climate variation is entirely within natural cyclical
variation, cooling trend now underway and is likely to continue to
2030's, according to best data.

Until the early to mid 2000s, global temperatures were more than a
degree Fahrenheit warmer when compared to the overall 20th Century mean.
From August of 2007 through February of 2008, the Earth’s mean reading
dropped to near the 200-year average temperature of 57 degrees.global
temps 2500bc to present

Since that time, the mean reading has been fluctuating. But, the
recently expired winter of 2013-14 was the coldest and snowiest in
modern times in parts of the Northern Hemisphere, including the U.S.,
Canada and Japan.

We, Cliff Harris and Randy Mann, believe that the warming and even the
cooling of global temperatures are the result of long-term climatic
cycles, solar activity, sea-surface temperature patterns and more.
However, Mankind’s activities of the burning of fossil fuels, massive
deforestations, the replacing of grassy surfaces with asphalt and
concrete, the ‘Urban Heat Island Effect,’ are making conditions ‘worse’
and this will ultimately enhance the Earth’s warming process down the
meteorological roadway in the next several decades.

From the late 1940s through the early 1970s, a climate research
organization called the Weather Science Foundation of Crystal Lake,
Illinois, determined that the planet’s warm, cold, wet and dry periods
were the result of alternating short-term and long-term climatic cycles.
These researchers and scientists also concluded that the Earth’s
ever-changing climate likewise has influenced global and regional
economies, human and animal migrations, science, religion and the arts
as well as shifting forms of government and strength of leadership. (See
Long-Term Chart).

Much of this data was based upon thousands of hours of research done by
Dr. Raymond H. Wheeler and his associates during the 1930s and 1940s at
the University of Kansas. Dr. Wheeler was well-known for his discovery
of various climate cycles, including his highly-regarded ‘510-Year
Drought Clock’ that he detailed at the end of the ‘Dust Bowl’ era in the
late 1930s.

During the early 1970s, our planet was in the midst of a colder and
drier weather cycle that led to concerns of another ‘Little Ice Age.’
Inflationary recessions and oil shortages led to rationing and long gas
lines at service stations worldwide. The situation at that time was far
worse than it is now, at least for the time being.

The Weather Science Foundation also predicted, based on these various
climate cycles, that our planet would turn much warmer and wetter by the
early 2000s, resulting in general global prosperity. They also said
that we would be seeing at this time widespread weather ‘extremes.’
There’s little doubt that most of their early predictions came true.

Our recent decline in the Earth’s temperature may be a combination of
both long-term and short-term climate cycles, decreased solar activity
and the development of strong long-lasting La Ninas, the cooler than
normal sea-surface temperature event in the south-central Pacific Ocean.
Despite the recent rise, sunspot activity since in the late 2000s has
averaged near the lowest levels since ‘The Little Ice Age’ ended in the
mid-to late 1800s. By 2020, some scientists state that solar activity
will plummet once again that could lead to much colder weather across
the globe. This recent "cool spell," though, may have only been a brief
interruption to the Earth’s overall warming trend. Only time will tell.

Based on these predictions, it appears that much warmer readings may be
expected for Planet Earth, especially by the 2030s, that will eventually
top 1998's global highest reading of 58.3 degrees. It’s quite possible
we could see an average temperature in the low 60s.

We at Harris-Mann Climatology, www.LongRangeWeather.com, believe that
our prolonged cycle of wide weather ‘extremes,’ the worst in at least
1,000 years, will continue and perhaps become even more severe,
especially by the mid 2010s. We've already seen a huge, disastrous "Mega
Storm" hit the East Coast in late October of 2012. The Great Plains and
Midwest has recently experienced the worst drought since the 'Dust Bowl
Days' of the 1930s in 2012. Since the turn of the century, we've seen
widespread flooding, crop-destroying droughts and freezes and violent
weather of all types including ice storms, large-sized hail and
torrential downpours.

The harsh conditions will likely lead to additional crop damage or
losses resulting in higher food prices. This has been already the case
since 2011.

Dr. Wheeler also discovered that approximately every 102 years, a much
warmer and drier climatic cycle affects our planet. The last such ‘warm
and dry’ peak occurred in 1936, at the end of the infamous ‘Dust Bowl’
period. During that time, extreme heat and dryness, combined with a
multitude of problems during the ‘Great Depression,’ made living
conditions practically intolerable.

The next ‘warm and dry’ climatic phase is scheduled to arrive in the
early 2030s, probably peaking around 2038. It is expected to produce
even hotter and drier weather patterns than we saw during the late 1990s
and early 2000s.

But, we should remember, that the Earth’s coldest periods have usually
followed excessive warmth. Such was the case when our planet moved from
the Medieval Warm Period between 900 and 1300 A.D. to the sudden ‘Little
Ice Age,’ which peaked in the 17th Century. Since 2,500 B.C., there
have been at least 78 major climate changes worldwide, including two
major changes in just the past 40 years.

By the end of this 21st Century, a cool down may occur that could
ultimately lead to expanding glaciers worldwide, even in the
mid-latitudes. Based on long-term climatic data, these major ice ages
have recurred about every 11,500 years. The last extensive ice age was
approximately 11,500 years ago, so we may be due again sometime soon.
But, only time will tell.

There’s a new mood in the air among those attuned to the cultural
influences that affect scientific inquiry. Fluttering against our
inclinations to look the other way is a nagging realization that what we
must now study is science itself, before it’s too late and before we’re
completely blind to the new reality that modern science is failing us.
The monomaniacal obsession with CO2 in the science of global warming is
now seen to have taken on a compulsive dimension with all the earmarks
of a dementia; and, we have to be concerned about the future wellbeing
of the very institution of higher learning.

What we’re seeing is a refusal to admit simple truths, such as the
inhumanity of depriving the Third and Developing worlds of energy.
We’ve come face-to-face with the possibility that a belief in global
warming theory is more than a symptom of a small, culturally and
socially disordered subgroup of society. The anxiety, fear,
hypochondria, hysteria, phobias and quixotic societal maladaptation to
challenges in the world around us can no longer be treated by simply
throwing more money at the specter of climate change.

Some scientists in wide-ranging fields from philosophy,
psychology, sociology and religion to economics and ethics, are looking
more closely at the psycho-cybernetics underlying what has come to be
called, climate change: a movement that is partly science, politics and
religion; and, in large part, a heavy-handed dose of self-defeating
neurosis. We may never agree on the reasons for the birth of the AGW
phenomenon –i.e., the shared belief that modernity and humanity simply
going about the business of living are heating the globe with disastrous
consequences for all.

Scientific disciplines, like economies, can and do
experience booms and busts. We document a boom in climate science,
sustained by massive levels of funding by government entities, whose
scientific direction is set by an extra-scientific organization, the
IPCC, which has emerged as a “big player” in the scientific arena,
championing the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming. We
note the difficulties in obtaining definitive empirical clarity due to
the complex nature of climate, the feedback between the effects of the
IPCC’s advocacy and the government’s willingness to fund the science,
the ideological and political agendas at play, the dangers to the
integrity of scientific procedure in the context of ideological bias,
and the poor performance of the “crony capitalist” enterprises that have
grown on the back of politicized science. (Butos, WN, McQuade, TJ.
Causes and Consequences of the Climate Science Boom)

The AGW phenomenon – largely typified by Left versus right
thinking – has given rise to a host of cultural disorders and a societal
schizophrenia based on a fear of climate change, all while demanding
change of all sorts, irrespective of the consequences. The fear
mongering about the causes of foul weather and disease – of droughts and
storms, cancer and death – and, the Left’s hatred of president Bush,
then Governor Palin, then the ‘Tea Party’ and ultimately conservatism is
the preferred way of thinking of this new order. The Left’s demonizing
of Christianity, capitalism and the wisdom of the Founders with its
pogrom against Christ, the productive and the Constitution – as
apocalyptic beasts that must be slain by progressivism – all while being
blind to the evils of radical Islam and communism, is a unifying mark
of Leftist consensus-thinking. The believers of global warming have
become the supporters of liberal fascism, complete with an antipathy to
Middle East Jews.

What principles do the followers of Climatism look to for
spiritual guidance? What could typify Leftist-thinking more than their
respect for the beliefs of people like Ward Churchill, Chairman Mao, Al
Gore, Hillary Clinton and pastor Jeremiah Wright (“No, no, no, not god
Bless America: god Damn America”)? Are we witnessing the decline and
fall of Western civilization and the rise of a dysfunctional,
unconscious incompetent, secular, socialist herd of nihilists: a society
corrupted on the inside and rotting from the head down with no respect
for Western philosophy, traditions, principles, morals, ethics, ideals?
Have we forgotten that Americanism holds at its heart the foundational
belief that every individual has the God-given right to be free of the
tyranny of the many?

The very nature of the IPCC’s organization, from its
politically motivated appointments of senior staff, to its process of
producing allegedly scientific summaries by negotiated compromise, to
its toleration of the intervention of political operatives into the
production of the most publicized reports of the state of the science,
has served to make it the purveyor of tainted science… And as a
herding-inducing Big Player in science, the IPCC has provided synergy
for the interventions of Big Players of a different sort, the government
entities who have seized on the IPCC-generated consensus to fund the
climate science boom thereby justify increasing economic interventions
citing the threat implied in the AGW hypothesis. (See, Butos, et al.,
Ibid.)

Sure, sure, it is true that a belief in global warming has been
exposed as being something more than science and even politics; but,
more interesting now is the blind acceptance of this new religion within
the consciousness of so many Westerners, and most especially among the
elitists of Leftist-thinking academia. The answer may be very simple:
perhaps, they don’t love their country and simply have no respect for
Western culture and traditions. Not even the scientific method can hold
their allegiance. Their slowly unfolding counter-cultural vision of
Utopia is where they want to live but they just can’t seem to get there
except by making the rest of us feel guilty for living.

I’ve been mocked, vilified, besmirched… simply for
expressing the view that the case for global warming and climate change,
and in particular the emphasis on the damage caused by carbon dioxide,
the so-called greenhouse gas that is going to do for us all, has been
massively over-stated… Blinded, maybe even brainwashed by the
climate-change zealots, we are spending so much money on reducing carbon
emissions that there is a danger of us bankrupting ourselves – and
future generations – to solve a problem that in the opinions of a
growing number of scientists and opinion-formers has been wildly
exaggerated… those who have been worshiping so ardently at the altar of
reduced carbon emissions… may find that they have been deifying not just
a false god…

I want a clean, green planet. But this obsession with controlling carbon
dioxide levels in the atmosphere is now as dangerous as it is
ridiculous… how worried they are about global warming, rising sea-levels
and, having seen alarmist films such as Al Gore’s An Inconvenient
Truth… And this breaks my heart. I want children to be excited about the
future, not cowed by it. I want them to grow up in a world which is
going to be better than the one their parents knew, not significantly
worse. I want them to grow up excited by technology and new inventions,
not worrying about where the electricity is going to come from to power
them. ~Johnny Ball (Beware the global warming fascists…, 22-Feb-2011)

Scientific booms do burst, but in areas where the phenomena are complex
and not well understood, the busts can be quiet and long drawn out… and
create an ideal breeding ground for incentives that motivate
ideologically biased people to circumvent normal constraints in the name
of pursuing a “greater good.” ~Butos, et al., Ibid.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

17 March, 2015

Conservatives Are No More Biased About Science Than Liberals Are

The article below by psychological researchers Erik C. Nisbet and R.
Kelly Garrett is a curious one. I have no great argument with
either their conclusions or their methodology but it is a sad day when
scientific claims are examined in this way. Disputes about
scientific claims should be examined by presentations and discussions of
the evidence only. The article below does not do that. It
treats the facts as irrelevant. It claims that ideology dictates
scientific conclusions, not the facts underlying the conclusions.

The
sad thing is that they are obviously right in lots of cases, but
it seems a great pity that they could not survey the evidence pro- and
con- for the scientific conclusions that they study.

I like to
think that I am persuaded solely by reason and the facts. I
can well imagine that in saying that I provoke laughter. But I
think I can substantiate it.

Christians sometimes say that
I am their favorite atheist. And they have good grounds for
that. I am basically a very religious person and was a very
fundamentalist Christian in my teens. I am perfectly at home even
with a demanding and puritanical religion. But I also have studied
philosophy from an early age and I cannot fault Carnap's argument that
all metaphysical statements are meaningless. So I have been an
extreme atheist for the whole of my adult life. I don't even
believe that the statement "God exists" is meaningful. Can you get
more thoroughgoing atheism than that?

But due to my religious
instincts and religious past, I still have warm feelings towards
Christians and regularly defend them. So some people CAN come to
conclusions about the world that are ideologically inconvenient -- VERY
inconvenient in my case.

And the undoubted fact that Northeast
Asians (in China, Japan, Korea) have markedly higher IQs than people of
European origin might well be bothersome to a person of European origin
like myself and I could be inclined to deny it -- as Leftists do.
But I actually accept the reality with perfect equanimity. I
publicize it in fact.

I suspect that many atheists find something
or somebody in the world about them to worship. The way many
obviously intelligent academics pore over the works of Karl Marx seems
to me to be pretty religious. "What Marx was really saying" is a
phrase that I have heard from them "ad nauseam". They treat Das
Kapital in the same way that fundamentalist Christians treat the
Bible. Their examination of it is very reminiscent of the
theological disputes among Christians. It is certainly their holy book.

And
I know why they do that. Marx was a great hater. He hated just
about everyone -- even the working class from which he hoped so
much. And Leftism is a religion of hate. Leftists hate the
world about them. They hate "the system", in their words.
That is why they yearn to "fundamentally transform" it, to use Obama's
phrase. So haters like a great hater. Marx FEELS right to
Leftists, even if no application of Marxism has worked even passably
well.

So have I too found a new object of worship to replace my
early Christianity? I don't think so. I am not only an
extreme atheist, I am also a complete one. I don't believe in Karl Marx,
Jesus Christ or global warming. And I also don't believe in the
unhealthiness of salt, sugar and fat. How skeptical can you get?
But I could be said to worship reason, I think.

Getting back to
the article below: The authors reveal themselves to be very
unscientific. Though maybe they had to be in order to get their
stuff published. Take for instance this paragraph:

"We note
in particular that our findings neither exempt nor validate the
well-organized and heavily funded “climate denialist movement.” This
movement engages in extensive public communication campaigns and
lobbying efforts intended to misrepresent the science and scientific
consensus about the issue"

Where is the evidence that climate
skeptics are "well-organized and heavily funded"? They quote no
evidence because there is none. The overwhelming majority of
climate skeptics are just isolated individuals calling foul over what
they see as bad science. And very few of us have received a cent in
connection with our writings on climate. I have received nil and other
skeptics I know say the same.

The statement is however a rather
good example of psychological projection. Warmists receive vast
financial support not only from government but even from energy
companies such as Exxon. Leftists understand people so poorly that
they judge other people by themselves. They HAVE to believe that we are
like them.

Despite my criticism of the article below, I hope it
is clear that I do agree with their fundamental premise that there is
such a thing as "motivated social cognition". That people see what they
want to see or expect to see is proverbial and has often been
demonstrated in psychological experiments. Even the classical Asch
conformity experiment is as good a demonstration of motivated social
cognition as any.

And motivated social cognition provides an
excellent explanation for the fact that there is a large degree of
consensus among academics about the dangers of global warming.
Solomon Asch would not be surprised by it. Let me elaborate:

At
law, one routinely asks "Cui Bono" (who benefits?) in deciding guilt or
innocence of some crime. It's often the decisive factor in arriving at a
conviction. And looking at who benefits from a belief in
dangerous global warming makes it crystal clear why academics support
that belief. The global warming scare has produced a huge shower
of research money to fall on climatologists and anyone else who
can get into the act. All academics hunger for research grants and
the global warming scare provides those lavishly. Say that
your research supports global warming and you are in clover. If we
go by the legal precedents, the consensus among academics is a
consensus about the desirability of research grants more than anything
else.

And the same thing goes for journalists and newspaper
proprietors. Scares sell newspapers and global warming is a scare
that can be milked in all sorts of ways. John Brignell has a long list of the ways.

So
where is the impact of the article below likely to be? I am
confident that it will have very little impact. It goes against
the kneejerk way the Green/Left respond to skeptics. Rather than
challenge the facts that skeptics put forward, the Green/Left simply
resort to abuse. They say anything derogatory about skeptics that
they can think of. They fallaciously think that abusing the arguer
answers the argument.

And one of the commonest types of abuse
that they resort to is to say that skeptics are psychologically
defective in some way. One such way is that skeptics and
conservatives generally are supposed to be especially closed-minded and
ideologically biased. The article below sinks that accusation
rather well. But the Green/Left cannot afford to lose an arrow out of
their slender quiver of them so the study below will simply be
ignored. Ignoring facts is a standard Leftist defence mechanism so
will be trotted out on this occasion with the greatest of ease

I
could say more but I have already said much so I will end with an
anecdote. Sometimes in company when some adverse weather event is
being discussed, I say: "It must be due to global warming". Every
time I say that people laugh. Skepticism about global warming is very
widespread. As far as I can see, it is only a few Leftist
barrow-pushers who believe in it and I wonder how sincere their belief
is.

I excerpt below just the "guts" of the article I have been discussing:

Testing our partisan brains

Our own study focused on the second explanation for ideological divides
and tested whether conservative and liberal trust in science varies by
topic.

Recruiting a diverse group of 1,500 adults from a national online panel
of volunteers, participants were randomly assigned to read
scientifically accurate statements about different science topics.

Some participants read about issues exhibiting a significant partisan
divide, including climate change, evolution, nuclear power, and
hydraulic fracturing (fracking) of natural gas, while others read about
issues that tend to be viewed as ideologically neutral, namely geology
and astronomy.

Nuclear power and fracking are often seen by liberals as threatening
their environmental values. Evolution and climate change are more often
contested by conservatives because they challenge the social and
economic beliefs associated with their ideology.

We went into our experiment expecting that liberals and conservatives
would experience negative emotional reactions when reading statements
challenging their views, which would increase their skepticism to the
claim.

We also anticipated that participants would be motivated to resist the
science, experiencing feelings of threat and arguing against the
presented information.

Each of these factors would lead individuals to feel more distrustful of
the source of the unwelcome information, the scientific community.

Unsurprisingly, we found that conservatives who read statements about
climate or evolution had a stronger negative emotional experience and
reported greater motivated resistance to the information as compared to
liberals who read the same statements and other conservatives who read
statements about geology or astronomy.

This in turn lead these conservatives to report significantly lower
trust in the scientific community as compared to liberals who read the
same statement or conservatives who read statements about ideologically
neutral science.

Significantly, we found a similar pattern amongst liberals who read
statements about nuclear power or fracking. And like conservatives who
read statements about climate change or evolution, they expressed
significantly lower levels of trust in the scientific community as
compared to liberals who read the ideologically-neutral statements.

Biased attitudes toward scientific information and trust in the
scientific community were evident among liberals and conservatives
alike, and these biases varied depending on the science topic being
considered.

An additional distressing finding was that though liberals who read
statements about climate change and evolution reported greater trust in
science than conservatives who did the same, they also reported
significantly less trust in the scientific community than liberals who
read ideologically neutral statements about geology or astronomy.

This suggests that highly partisan, high profile science can result in
an overall loss of public confidence in the scientific community, even
amongst those likely to trust the evidence.

We wish to stress that demonstrating that both conservatives and
liberals are prone to responding to ideologically unpalatable scientific
information in a biased manner is not an excuse for either side to do
so.

We note in particular that our findings neither exempt nor validate the
well-organized and heavily funded “climate denialist movement.” This
movement engages in extensive public communication campaigns and
lobbying efforts intended to misrepresent the science and scientific
consensus about the issue; it funds and targets political candidates;
and it attempts to intimidate climate scientists.

Anthony Cox below rightly reports that the movie has a large basis in
fact. The Green/Left do indeed despise humanity and want to
reduce the human population. And many do see humanity as a
"disease" infecting and damaging the planet. And as
psychohistorian Richard Koenigsberg points out at length, that is also how Hitler saw Jews -- as parasites infecting Germany.

Leftists
rarely know much about history and it shows. They keep on
repeating themselves with no awareness of their past mistakes and
failures. Because they know so little history, they cannot learn
from it.

Note that Croly and others of the war-mongering
American "Progressives" around the beginning of the 20th century also
relied on the human body as an analogy to the state and justified their
policies as "healing" the body of America. The more things change,
the more they remain the same -- at least among Leftists

Some movies are unintentionally anti-AGW because they are so pretentious like Atavar or just plain stupid like Noah.

Some are subtle and sly in their critique of AGW like Interstellar, a
great movie or Captain America: The Winter Soldier another great piece
of cinema.

But there is nothing subtle or sly about Kingsman: The Secret Service;
this movie presents in Technicolour the awful nature of alarmists; they
are elitist, narcissistic and misanthropic. And riddled in hypocrisy.

The villain is Valentine, played by Samuel Jackson. Valentine is another
tech billionaire who despises his fellow man for causing AGW. His
solution is to kill off 99.9% of the human population.

His sales pitch to the rich and famous is classic alarmist agigprop.
Valentine tells them that humans are a virus raising the temperature of
the living Earth. If the virus isn’t destroyed the planet’s fever will
worsen and either the planet will fight back and kill the disease of the
disease will kill the planet.

The idea that humans are a disease or parasite has underpinned the AGW
narrative and is espoused by all the leading AGW scientists and
particularly AGW’s many rich supporters like Bill Gates.

In Kingsman Valentine is seen convincing Obama of his vision which is
ironic since Obama’s chief scientist, John Holdren, is an avid supporter
of forced reduction of humanity. In real life Obama would have taking
no convincing.

Valentine, as the archetypal rich supporter of AGW, has a tenuous
hold on real life. He thinks he is living in a movie and can’t stand the
sight of blood even though he is prepared to kill billions.

Valentine is the perfect portrayal of the elitist loon who supports AGW.
He has made his vast wealth from his society and now as a matter of
vanity will destroy that society. The thought that his lifestyle will
cease when the society is destroyed doesn’t enter his thinking. This is
cognitive dissonance on a grand scale.

Valentine implants chips in the chosen ones so they can resist the doomsday device he has perfected.

In a delicious twist all the elistists, including Obama (and Prince
Charles) literally lose their heads when the device backfires.

The movie wittily portrays the religious nature of AGW belief when
Valentine tests his device on a bible bashing Southern Baptist church.
The message is plain: when religion claims to be fact trouble is
inevitable. This is what has happened with AGW: it is religion
masquerading as fact. Armed with the pseudoscience of AGW rich crackpots
like Valentine can live out their dreams. At the end Valentine can’t
tell reality from his ego generated bubble of fantasy.

The movie offers no formal solution to the blight of public corruption
by the AGW scam and relies on a steadfast and very aggressive secret
organisation to violently eradicate the AGW zealots and hypocrites.

Extreme weather the new normal in Australia's disaster-prone neighbourhood

As soon as I saw the headline above I smelled a rat. I then
deployed my pesky habit of going back to the raw data underlying the
report. I did not have to go far. I read here:

"In
order for a disaster to be entered into the database at least one of
the following criteria has to be fulfilled: - 10 or more people reported
killed; - 100 people reported affected; - a call for international
assistance; - declaration of a state of emergency"

So the finding
is not about climate but about people. It does not list cyclones,
hurricanes etc. but rather the number of people impacted. And with
growing populations in third world countries -- where most of the
casualties occur -- one must expect more people to be impacted when
severe weather strikes. The data therefore tell us NOTHING about
"climate change"

If it seems to you that major humanitarian emergencies are happening
more often, you're right. Extreme weather events like the one that
devastated Vanuatu on Saturday are on the rise. Since 2000, the average
number of climate-related disasters each year has been 44 per cent
higher than between 1994 and 2000 and well over twice the level during
the 1980s, a data-based managed by Brussels-based Centre for Research on
the Epidemiology of Disasters shows.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told a disaster risk
reduction conference in Japan on Saturday that climate change is making
extreme weather events the new normal.

"Over the last two decades, more than four out of every five disasters
were related to the climate change phenomenon," he said. "The economic
toll is as high as $300 billion every year."

Developing countries are disproportionately affected – they account for
about 95 per cent of all people killed by natural disasters – and once
again small, vulnerable nations have been hit hardest. Cyclone Pam
caused damage in Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands before tearing
through Vanuatu.

Vanuatu President Baldwin Lonsdale has stressed the long-term consequences of the disaster.

"All I can say is that our hope for prospering in future have been sedated."

Australia's immediate neighbourhood is especially prone to extreme
weather events. The latest World Risk Index, collated by the United
Nations University, showed five of the 10 countries most vulnerable to
disasters are near Australia. The index's rankings have proved
alarmingly accurate. Vanuatu was ranked No.1 on the index, and the
Philippines, which was shattered by Cyclone Haiyan only 16 months ago,
was ranked No.2. Other Australian neighbours among the top 10 were
Tonga, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.

Australia is a significant contributor to the global humanitarian system and has a special responsibility in the Pacific region.

"As one of the biggest and strongest economies in the region, Australia
really should be leading the way in helping our closest neighbours to
prepare for and recover from disasters such as Cyclone Pam," said Paul
Ronalds, the head Save the Children Australia.

Australia contributes about 60 per cent of all the aid given in the
Pacific Islands and is best equipped to lead major humanitarian
operations in the region. With the humanitarian system under strain
across the globe, it is likely Australia will be called upon more often
to provide assistance after extreme weather events in the Pacific.

The Environmentalist religious dogma that humans are destroying the
earth has spawned many scams. Its most ambitious project, veritably a
Superscam has been the claim that the climate is controlled by human
emissions of so-called greenhouse gases.

These cause global warming which will ultimately destroy us unless we
cease using 'fossil fuels.' The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) was set up in 1988 in order to supply scientific evidence
to support this scam.

It was realised from the start that the task was impossible.

The earth does not have a temperature and there is no way that a
scientifically acceptable average temperature can currently be derived.
it is not possible to know whether the earth is warming or cooling,
Then, the climate is constantly changing. No part is ever in
equilibrium.

The trace gases in the atmosphere are not well mixed and their
concentrations change constantly in every place. It is not possible to
derive an average concentration for any of them. Then, the science of
the study of the climate, built up over many centuries as the discipline
of meteorology, has officially established weather forecasting services
in most countries. These services now measure many climate properties
with a variety of instruments, including satellites.

The measurements are used in the most up to date computer models based
on currently accepted physics, thermodynamics and statistics. They
provide the only scientifically valid daily forecasts of future weather
for every part of the earth.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide measurement has not proved to be useful and
they do not even bother to measure it. It is simply not possible to
overcome these difficulties with honest science, It has therefore been
necessary to employ fraud, dishonesty, distortion fabrication, massive
public relations, and enormous sums of money.

Jim Hansen of the Goddard Institute of Space Studies in New York
provided a pseudo global temperature technique that has proved useful to
the scammers. He admits that there is no such thing as an absolute
Surface Air Temperature (SAT : He calls it elusive) Meteorologists know
it is impossible to measure a plausible average surface air temperature.
Instead they record a daily maximum and minimum in a protected screen
at their weather stations. Today they often also measure at different
intervals as well.

These are a useful guide to temperature conditions.
Hansen and Lebedeff 1987 decided to ignore what Hansen had said was
impossible. They assigned a constant temperature to each weather station
for a whole month and assumed that this temperature applies also to a
radius of 100 km around each weather station. The chosen temperature was
the total average maximum and minimum temperatures measured at that
station for a each month, the sum of the statistically unacceptable
maximum/minimum averages.

They considered that could correlate each station figure with the next
weather station. But their correlation coefficient was only 0.5 or
lower. By subtractimg the average from stations in all
latitude/longitude boxes from the average in each box they got an annual
global temperature anomaly record. There is no mention of the very
large inaccuracy figures that should accompany this exercise, or of the
varying number and quality of the global weather stations, both
currently and over time.

The IPCC has used the supposed trend of a measly few decimals of a
degree of this concoction to prove that global warming is happening and
will inevitably rise dangerously. Now it has broken down.

This trend has hardly changed for 18 years while greenhouse gases have
supposedly increased The IPCC has resorted to desperate measures.
Instead of annual warming we now have to worry about decadal warming,
Efforts are escalated to fudge the figures and publicise a slight rise
of hundredths of a degree at any opportunity The required treatment of
atmospheric carbon dioxide was made by Charles Keeling of the Scripps
Institute off Oceanography La Jolla California.

The grossly oversimplified climate models demand that atmospheric carbon
dioxide is globally constant, only increasing from more human
emissions.

This was a problem because there exist some 40,000 previous measurements
going back to the early 19th century, published in famous peer reviewed
journals, sometimes by Nobel Prize-winners. These measurements showed
that surface concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are
never constant and vary from one place to another, time of day, season,
and wind direction.

Keeling suppressed this early information. He gave the excuse that he
had a slightly different measurement method and he had discovered fhaf
there was a background concentration which was almost constant and
increased steadily with increased emissions. Keeling based his figures
on sites at the Mauna Loa volcano on the island of Oahu. Hawaii, and a
site in Antarctica.

In order to come close to a globally constant value at any one time it
was required that most other measurements were made from coastal sites
on winds from the ocean. Any figures that did not comply are rejected as
noise.

A difficulty was that the steadily increasing figures over the years did
not easily agree with the rather sporadic behaviour of the approved
global temperature. Now this carbon dioxide scam has broken down.

The NASA satellite AIRS system now provides frequent global maps of
carbon dioxide concentration showing that it is not well mixed, is
highly variable, and tends to be higher in regions of high emissions.
The officially sponsored background is no longer relevant, and the fact
that the supposed warming effect of carbon dioxide is logarithmic with
concentration means that increases have little effect in high
concentration areas and is most effective over forests and pastures
where it is beneficial.

The IPCC climate models defy all of the accumulated knowledge of climate
science currently practised by meteorologists and replace it with a
system of absurdities which has been amazingly successful.

Instead of the ever changing climate we know. It is now assumed to be
static. All heat exchanges are by radiation. Admittedly the input and
output are radiation but everything else in the climate combines all
methods of heat exchange, predominantly conduction, convection and
latent heat change.

The sun is assumed to shine all day and might with equal intensity. The
earth is dead where living creatures are impossible except they emit
greenhouse gases. All the past climate effects known to meteorology are
parameterized and assumed to be constant.

There is no hope that such a model could possibly forecast future
climate and the IPCC even admits this. They say the models provide
projections, never predictions.

At the beginning they avoided being proved wrong by projecting only so
far ahead that they could be sure nobody living would survive to check.
The IPCC has now been running for 25 years and the early reports had to
show that the models fitted their temperature record. Now it doesn’t.

Also the models could be used to calculate present upper troposphere
temperatures, and that does not work either. They are therefore in deep
trouble. All they can do is prevent people from telling the truth.

Every news bulletin, every newspaper must have a daily reference to
global warming or carbon footprint or endure protests from climate
activists who must all write letters to the press and organise
rentacrowd gatherings of environmental devotees to picket any discussion
venues. There must be constant lectures by those most financially
dependent on the scam.

With luck the downfall of Valhalla will take place at the Paris Climate
meeting in December where the attempts to impose a global climate
dictatorship will either fail miserably or fizzle slowly. What a relief!

This latest green initiative is promising, but it will cost British taxpayers a fortune

The headlong charge to make the UK a low-carbon economy is reflected in
the desperation of both the current Lib-Con coalition government and the
Labour opposition to find and fund new ways of producing green energy.
The scale of the problem is hard to underestimate. As Caroline Flint,
the shadow energy secretary, noted last weekend: ‘We need to invest
around £100 billion in the electricity system alone by 2020 as we
replace ageing and polluting sources of power with new, cleaner
alternatives. But investment is running at half that level.’

Flint was talking to the Observer about Labour’s idea of green premium
bonds to encourage the public to invest in new forms of energy. While it
may be copying a policy that is already in place in Germany, it sounds
like an expensive way to raise money when the government can borrow from
the financial markets very cheaply. It’s just the kind of wonkish,
half-thought-through announcement we can expect more of in the run-up to
the election. But when it comes to green energy, cost barely seems to
be a consideration in the rush to be seen to be green.

Last week, for example, plans for producing electricity in the UK from
tidal lagoons were unveiled. The first, to be built off the coast of
Swansea, will involve building a sea wall five miles long with turbines
embedded into it. As the tide comes in, water will flow through the
turbines to produce power and the process will be reversed as the tide
goes out. The proposal would involve building six such lagoons – four in
Wales plus two in England.

In many ways, this is good news. When green energy is so often discussed
in terms of small-scale local schemes, or overshadowed by the demand to
use less rather than generate more, the plans for tidal lagoons are on a
huge scale and involve billions of pounds of investment. Unlike wind
power, which is unpredictable, the timing of electricity production from
the lagoons would be predictable because we know exactly when tides
come in and out, making the electricity much easier to manage on the
National Grid.

And a sea wall – something that could have other benefits besides
producing power – is far less likely to incur the wrath of local
residents who often hate their local landscape being covered in wind
turbines. With offshore wind turbines – which are much more productive
than their equivalents on land – proving to be stubbornly expensive to
build and maintain, tidal lagoons could solve a number of problems.

The trouble is the cost. The developers want a guaranteed price of £168
per megawatt-hour (MWh) from the Swansea scheme. That’s far higher than
the cost of electricity from coal (more like £50 per MWh) or even
onshore wind (roughly £80 per MWh). The only redeeming feature of tidal
lagoons is that the costs might, in the long run, come down to
marginally less than the eye-bleedingly expensive price agreed for power
from the Hinkley Point C nuclear-power plant, at £95 per MWh. Moreover,
if we going to bank on the costs of tidal power coming down as more
facilities get built, maybe we should give the same benefit of the doubt
to nuclear, the costs of which would no doubt fall as more plants were
built. That is if they are ever given the chance, given the lingering
anti-nuclear feeling among green groups and in the corridors of power.

Such is the price to be paid for low-carbon energy – and it will be
end-users who pay that price. Not only will it make high energy bills
even higher, but it makes the UK even less attractive to heavy
industrial users of electricity. At a time when the government is trying
to ‘rebalance’ the economy towards industry and away from services,
making large-scale production even more expensive by bumping up the
price of power seems irrational.

In the dash to decarbonise the UK economy in the name of preventing
climate change, the result could be far greater hardship. There are
often claims that green policies will produce lots of jobs, but the
reality is almost certainly the opposite: massive subsidies to
particular firms – green-energy producers, recycling firms, and so on –
at the expense of many others. The tidal lagoon project is a case in
point. It is only the obsession with global warming that means schemes
like these tidal lagoons are considered viable at all. Meanwhile,
natural gas produced by fracking is struggling to get off the ground,
despite having enormous potential to produce cheap, reliable and
flexible power. Where gas replaces coal, it leads to lower emissions
than before. Yet green groups have been at the forefront of trying to
block its development in the UK.

In short, tackling climate change through making energy more expensive
could have worse consequences than rising temperatures (and would do
little to prevent rising temperatures).

It is one thing to favour low-carbon solutions where there is little
difference in price. There can be benefits in terms of increasing
security of supply, providing some insurance against fluctuating fuel
prices and producing less local air pollution. But those benefits do not
justify the enormous sums of money being thrown at renewable-energy
schemes, at the expense of the people who need the energy. Instead of
spending a fortune on dubious energy sources funded by whizz-bang
schemes like Flint’s premium bonds, maybe we should have a serious
conversation about the damage that green policies could be having

A governor and his son lobby for ethanol – and expect presidential candidates to endorse it

Paul Driessen

Talk about the Norfolk terrier tail wagging the Great Dane. If they are
to have any hope of winning their party’s nomination, Republican
presidential hopefuls better support ethanol mandates, Hawkeye State
politicos told potential candidates at the recent Iowa Agricultural
Summit in Des Moines.

“Don’t mess with the RFS,” Republican Governor Terry Branstad warned,
referring to Renewable Fuel Standards that require refiners to blend
increasing amounts of ethanol into gasoline. “It is the Holy Grail, and I
will defend it,” said Rep. Steve King, another Iowa Republican. It is
vital for reducing carbon dioxide emissions and preventing dangerous
climate change and weather extremes, said others.

Corn ethanol is big in Iowa, the March 7-8 Ag Summit kicked off the
state’s 2016 election debates, big-time GOP donor Bruce Rastetter made
his fortune from ethanol and hosted the event, and the first
presidential primary will be held in Iowa. Moreover, Gov. Branstad’s son
Eric directs the multi-million-dollar America’s Renewable Future
campaign, which co-sponsored the summit and hopes to convince
increasingly skeptical voters that the federal government must retain
the RFS or even expand it.

Failure to back the RFS means sayonara to any White House hopes,
candidates were told. Appropriately chastened, many normally free market
proponents dutifully took to the podium to endorse the mandates.

Some cited national security as a justification. The RFS reduces demand
for foreign oil, Jeb Bush asserted. Biofuels are a way for America to
“fuel itself,” said Mike Huckabee. “Every gallon of ethanol … is one
less gallon you have to buy from people who hate your guts,” Lindsay
Graham added.

Others focused on allegedly unfair competition. Rick Santorum said the
RFS helps ensure that other competitive products besides oil and natural
gas “are allowed into [the energy] stream.” Scott Walker recanted his
previous opposition and said someday the ethanol industry won’t need
these mandates, but right now it “needs government assistance,” because
“we don’t have a free and open marketplace.”

Bush and Santorum added that ethanol boosts corn-state economies and
creates jobs “in small town and rural America.” Chris Christie said the
RFS is “what the law requires” and we need to comply with it. Rick Perry
seemed to say it’s time to end federal mandates – and let states pick
winners and losers.

That’s fine. But now that they have bowed to the biofuel gods, kowtowed
to the small cadre of Iowa corn growers, sought the blessings of crony
capitalist campaign contributors, and repeated the standard deviations
from facts about green energy, climate change and national security,
perhaps they will pay closer attention to other candidates, and to
what’s actually happening in the energy and climate arenas.

Presidential hopefuls Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul remained firm
in their belief that the RFS should be phased out now. Cruz has joined
Senators Mike Lee (R-UT), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and
others in sponsoring bills to abolish the corn ethanol RFS over five
years.

If refiners and gas stations really are working with big oil to cut off
access, Cruz suggested, “there are remedies in the federal antitrust
laws to deal with that.” Otherwise “the right answer” is to let biofuels
keep innovating and producing on their own, “and not have Washington
dictating what is happening.”

Biofuel’s problem is not lack of access or unfair competition. It’s that
the world has changed since ethanol subsidies and mandates were enacted
in 2005. Back then, people more plausibly believed we were running out
of petroleum, and global warming might become a serious problem.

But then hydraulic fracturing took off. This steadily improving
60-year-old technology turned the United States into the world’s #1
producer of oil and natural gas – and the U.S. is now importing
one-third of its oil, instead of two-thirds. Gasoline prices have
plunged, making ethanol much less cost-competitive.

Motorists are buying less gasoline than the 2005 and 2007 ethanol
mandates envisioned, so refiners don’t need even 14 billion gallons of
corn ethanol a year, much less the 15 billion statutory cap. They’ve hit
a “blend wall,” and are being forced to buy far more ethanol than they
can blend into E10 gasoline. They certainly don’t need an extra 21
billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol by 2022 – and innovators still
haven’t figured out how to make that “advanced biofuel” at a profit.

Using tax dollars to prop up new subsidies, and imposing 15% ethanol
gasoline mandates, would be a ridiculous response. The last thing we
need is more citizen cash for crony capitalist cellulosic capers.

As to climate fears, no Category 3-5 hurricane has hit the United States
since late 2005, the longest such period in more than a century, and
perhaps since the Civil War. Tornado activity is also down. Arctic ice
has returned to normal and Antarctic ice is at record levels. Sea levels
are rising at barely six inches per century. The global frequency and
duration of droughts, rainfall and snowfall is within historic norms.

Where is the crisis? The fossil fuel link? If human carbon dioxide
emissions drive climate change, did steadily rising atmospheric CO2
levels cause all these blessings and normalcy, and average global
temperatures to hold steady for 18 years? The far more likely answer is
that the sun and other natural forces still dominate climate and weather
systems, as they have throughout Earth and human history – and as
actual, real-world temperature, climate, weather, solar and other
observations strongly suggest.

IPCC, EPA, NASA, Obama, Penn State, East Anglia University and other
climate models and alarms are completely at odds with what is happening
on Planet Earth. No wonder alarmists are now so desperate that they
blame every weather event on fossil fuels, and viciously attack
scientists who point to reality … and threaten their Climate Crisis,
Inc. money machine and regulatory power grab.

On top of all the corporate and scientist welfare, rip-offs and
McCarthyite tactics, the manmade climate cataclysm mantra has also
created a steady stream of corruption and scandal. Former Oregon
Governor John Kitzhaber was forced to resign, after he and his fiancé
Cylvia Hayes profited (and failed to report $118,000 in income) from
“green energy” schemes. Current Oregon Global Warming Commission
chairman Angus Duncan is also president of the Bonneville Environmental
Foundation, which makes millions from regional and national sales of
renewable energy and “Green Tag” carbon offsets; he also helped write
the state’s climate change strategy and cap-and-trade system!

Tens of billions of dollars in wheeling, dealing, nepotism and
corporate-environmentalist-political cronyism is intolerable. The
Branstad governor-son arrangement raises sniff tests of its own.

Then there are the practical problems. A few corn and soybean farmers
get rich. But meat and poultry producers pay far more for feed, and
family food bills keep rising. Perhaps worse, says the World Bank,
turning half of the U.S. corn crop into fuel creates aid and food
shortages in poor nations. More people stay hungry longer, and more die
of malnutrition and starvation. The UN Food and Agriculture Association
says this has caused food riots and calls it an environmental “crime
against humanity.”

Ethanol-blends get fewer miles per tank than pure gasoline. They collect
water, corrode engine parts, and cause serious maintenance and repair
problems for lawn mowers, chain saws, snowmobiles, emergency generators
and other small engines. Classic car enthusiast and former Late Night
host Jay Leno says ethanol “eats through fuel pump diaphragms, old
rubber fuel lines or pot metal parts, then leaks out on hot engines …
and ka-bloooooie!” The older cars catch fire – far more often than
before E10 was required.

A new Oregon State University study says biofuels barely reduce fossil
fuel use and are likely to increase greenhouse gas emissions. And US
Department of Energy and other studies demonstrate that producing
biofuels requires unsustainable amounts of land, water, fertilizers,
pesticides and fossil fuels.

Not surprisingly, even many likely Iowa voters are now skeptical of
federal ethanol mandates. Nearly half of them no longer support the RFS
even if it helps some Iowa farmers. Republican presidential candidates
who surrendered to a gaggle of Iowa corn growers and renewable fuel
interests need to reflect long and hard on these ethanol and corruption
realities, and the broader national interest.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

16 March, 2015

By what right?

By the right of the First Amendment for starters -- followed by the
right to point out that the scientific consensus is often wrong and
eventually has to be abandoned

John Kerry:

“Science tells us that when the water temperature drops below 32 degrees
Fahrenheit, it turns to ice. No one disputes that,” he said. ”So when
science tells us that our climate is changing and human beings are
largely causing that change, by what right do people stand up and just say, ‘well, I dispute that, or I deny that elementary truth?'"

“And yet there are those that do so,” he said.

Kerry spoke for nearly an hour at the Atlantic Council, and insisted that the science behind climate change is settled.

“It may seem obvious to you, but it isn’t to some,” he said. “The
science is and has and long been crystal clear when it comes to climate
change.” [Crystal clear? Crystal-ball clear more like it]

“If we make the switch to a global clean energy economy … if we think
more creatively about how we power our cars, heat our homes, operate our
businesses, then we still have time to prevent the worst consequences
of climate change,” he said. “It really is as simple as that.”

Environmentalism, a theory of natural limits, is intrinsically
pro-austerity; to be anti-austerity and environmentalist is a
contradiction in terms

Yet Green/Left politicians from Greece to Britain are railing against
austerity. They are not acknowledging their self-contradictions

All three of them were there: UK prime minister and Tory leader David
Cameron, his deputy and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, and Labour leader Ed
Miliband. It was only a few weeks ago, too. The General Election was
meant to be looming, the arguments and debates hotting up. But, no,
there they all were, green NGO lobbyists lurking in the background,
signing a joint pledge to fight climate change regardless of who won the
election. This was all about agreement, consensus. As far as Cam,
Cleggers and the Miliband brother were concerned, the issue of climate
change and its policy imperatives, such as carbon budgets and ‘the
transition to a low-carbon economy’, were simply not up for argument. In
effect, they agreed to put climate change beyond debate.

If you ever needed a more striking example of just how little separates
the different brands of the political class, it’s this politics-defying
moment: three fortysomething, corporate-suited men-about-Westminster all
agreeing that there are some things you just can’t talk about in front
of the electorate.

It was a shockingly undemocratic moment. But not a surprising one. The
fortunes of what was to become environmentalism may have waxed and waned
ever since reactionary cleric Thomas Malthus first suggested, in the
late eighteenth century, that there are natural limits to what
Enlightenment philosophes’ posited as unlimited social and material
progress. But, with the slowdown of Western economies from the 1970s
onwards, environmentalist sentiment, the belief that human society has
gone as far as it can and should, has gradually come to dominate the
worldview of Western elites. Hence it is now effectively the ideology of
the West’s clueless, futureless political leaders.

And little wonder. Environmentalism didn’t just rationalise away
economic stagnation as something natural (with the growth of the
financial services sector, and a series of credit-pumped bubbles
providing illusory optimistic interludes). It turned the potential
failure materially to advance society, to grow the economy, into
something almost virtuous, something that mightn’t be such a bad thing.
Born from Malthus’s opposition to Enlightenment reason, an opposition to
the confidence in man’s ability to master nature, and to drag society
towards a gleaming, ever-more prosperous, ever-freer future,
environmentalism, in its late twentieth and early twenty-first-century
incarnations, allowed Western leaders to disavow all that Enlightenment
baggage, to recast modernity as something rapaciously industrial,
tyrannical and hubristic. We should know our place. Not championing
growth became virtuous. Not seeking to master nature became wise. And
consuming and producing less? That became the dream.

So the fact that the UK’s three party-political amigos showed the depth
of their commitment to environmentalism and ‘fighting climate change’ by
attempting to de-politicise it was really only to be expected. It is
their ideology, their grand narrative. The avoidance of a scorched and
sunken dystopia is the closest Cameron and pals have to a big, unifying
idea, the end that makes sense of all their low-fi policies, be it
diminished energy production, limited house building or no-growth
economics. They can as little do without environmentalist sentiment as
they can PR consultants. It makes sense of their role.

But there’s something else going on, too. Back in the mid-2000s, when
the papers were daily full of green-tinted End of Days predictions, Lord
Stern’s economics-of-climate-change dirges excited the
Guardian-subscribing classes and people actually bothered to read the
latest IPCC report, politicians were desperate to display their
climate-change-fighting credentials. So in 2006, a pre-prime-ministerial
David Cameron was hugging huskies in the Arctic, a pre-prime
ministerial Gordon Brown was making climate change his big cause at the
Fabian Society’s annual conference, and a never-to-be-prime-minister
David Miliband was talking excitedly of prioritising ‘carbon thrift, as
well as economic thrift’. Consume less, cut back and make do - that was
the mantra.

The commentariat also seemed militantly environmentalist. A columnist
writing in the Financial Times in 2006 argued that ‘rationing provides
the best solution to the problem of reducing carbon emissions quickly,
dramatically and equitably’. In the New Statesman one writer argued, in a
piece called ‘Why we must ration the future’, that because ‘carbon
rationing represents a total break with business as usual… it is the
only climate-change policy that will work’. In 2007, the Guardian’s
George Monbiot boasted that environmentalism was a ‘campaign not for
abundance but for austerity’. ‘Bring on the recession’, he said.

But that militancy ceased, and that party-political enthusiasm for all
things green became more muted, less strident, as the economic crisis
and subsequent recession unfolded. So why has environmentalism retreated
behind semi-closed doors? Because it has been a victim of its own
miserable success. The limiting, the cutting back, the restraint, the
austerity, all of which had been called for with such grim glee before
2008, had now become a reluctant reality. To promote environmentalist
thinking with the same vigour in the midst of the recession now just
sounds like an endorsement of the recession – which, effectively, it
always was.

But that poses a problem for politicians who at least want to offer the
promise to the electorate, albeit in bad faith, that things might get
better. And it poses a problem for reactionary lefties, who embraced
environmentalist tropes with such opportunist anti-capitalist glee
before 2008, but who now want to challenge austerity. Environmentalism, a
theory of natural limits, is intrinsically pro-austerity; to be
anti-austerity and environmentalist is a contradiction in terms.

This is one of the great unspoken paradoxes of contemporary politics.
Ahead of the General Election, the very same politicians and
commentators who once displayed their environmentalist credentials,
their restrain ’em and ration ’em sentiments, with such pride, now claim
to be vehemently anti-austerity. Miliband recently ramped up his
anti-austerity gurning, moaning about how much ‘Tory cuts’ are taking
away from British men and women. Monbiot raged against ‘the continued
implementation of austerity’. Even Green Party leader Natalie Bennett,
who had been let out for the day at the Greens’ spring conference,
called for an ‘end [to] the failed austerity experiment’.

Yet, behind the big-spending bluster, through the fug of anti-austerity
posing, this same elite network remain absolutely shot through with
environmentalist thinking, the same thinking that calls on us to change
our behaviour, to ration our consumption, to accept the limits to
growth. The same thinking that disavows Enlightenment and modernity as
just so much human-centric error. And someone like Miliband asks us to
believe he’s opposed to austerity. Is he having a laugh? One minute he’s
denouncing the nasty Tories for their austerity regime, the next he’s
pledging his commitment to the ‘fight against climate change’ in
coalition with Cam and Cleggers.

This isn’t a problem confined to the UK. We’ve seen it in Europe, where
parties like Syriza pose as the enemies of austerity while embracing
every green-hued prejudice going. It’s a profound and troublesome
contradiction, and it’s one that needs to be overcome. Because the
biggest impediment to a genuinely anti-austerity, pro-abundance politics
is not Cameron or so-called neoliberalism; it’s the environmentalism
that, for too long, has held Western political elites in its baleful
thrall.

solar panel installationWhen a former “senior communications official at
the White House” writes a blog post for U.S. News and World Report, you
should be able to trust it. But when the author states that the
Keystone pipeline (should it be approved) would create only 19 weeks of
temporary jobs, everything else he says must be suspect — including the
claim that our “energy infrastructure will be 100 percent solar by
2030.”

I contacted both a union representative and one from TransCanada — the
company behind the Keystone pipeline. Each affirmed that the 19-week
timeframe was total fantasy. The portion of the Keystone pipeline that
remains to be built is 1179 miles long — the vast majority of that
within the U.S.— with construction expected to take two years.

TransCanada’s spokesperson Mark Cooper responded to my query: “While
some people belittle these jobs as temporary, we know that without
temporary construction jobs — and the hard work of the men and women who
do them — we wouldn’t have roads, highways, schools or hospitals. We
wouldn’t have the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, or the
Hoover Dam. So, I would say to these detractors: ‘It is OK if you don’t
like or support Keystone XL. But let’s stop putting down the very people
who have helped build America.’”

The premise of the On the Edge blog post is that we shouldn’t look at
Keystone as a jobs creator. Instead, the author claims, the jobs are in
“solar energy disruption.” He is frustrated that “GOP leaders almost
universally ignore or disdain this emerging energy economy.”

He states: “A third of all new electric generation in 2014 came from
solar. A new solar installation or project now occurs somewhere in the
U.S. — built by a team of American workers employed in the fastest
growing energy sector in the world — every three minutes.”

This may be true but, as you’ll see, it belies several important
details. Plenty of cause exists for Republican lawmakers to “disdain”
the growth in renewable energy.

If “a third of all new electric generation in 2014 came from solar,”
there is reason for it—and it does not include sound economics.

First, efficient and effective base-load, coal-fueled electricity that
has provided the bulk of America’s power is being prematurely shut down
by regulations prompted by environmental lobbyists and promulgated by
the Obama Administration. It is virtually impossible to get a new
coal-fueled power plant permitted in the U.S. Even natural gas-powered
plants, such as the one planned to replace the Salem Harbor coal-fueled
plant, meet with resistance from groups such as Grassroots Against
Another Salem Plant, which “has pledged to use peaceful civil
disobedience to block construction of the gas plant.” And, of course,
just try to build a nuclear power plant, and all the fear-mongers come
out.

What’s left? Renewables, such as wind and solar, receive favorable
treatment through a combination of mandates and subsidies. Even
industrial wind and solar have their own opposition within the
environmental lobby groups because they chop up and fry birds and bats—
including protected bald and golden eagles.

The brand new report, Solar Power in the U.S. (SPUS), presents a
comprehensive look at the impacts of solar power on the nation’s
consumers.

Clearly, without the mandates and subsidies, this “solar energy disruption” would go dark.

We’ve seen companies, such as Solyndra, Abound Solar, and Evergreen
Solar, go bankrupt even with millions of dollars in state and federal
(taxpayer) assistance. I’ve written extensively on these stories and
that of Abengoa—which received the largest federal loan guarantee ($2.8
billion) and has resorted to questionable business practices to keep the
doors open (Abengoa is currently under investigation from several
federal agencies).

SPUS shows that without the subsidies and mandates these renewable
projects can’t survive. For example, in Australia, sales of solar
systems “fell as soon as the incentives were cut back.” Since the
Australian government announced that it was reconsidering its Renewable
Energy Targets, “investments have started to dry up.”

Knowing the importance of the “incentives,” the solar industry has now
become a major campaign donor, providing political pressure and money to
candidates, who will bring on more mandates, subsidies, and tax
credits. Those candidates are generally Democrats, as one of the key
differences between the two parties is that Democrats tend to support
government involvement. By contrast, Republicans lean toward limited
government and the free market. The GOP doesn’t “disdain” solar, but
they know it only survives because of government mandates that require a
certain percentage of renewables, and specifically solar, in the energy
mix, plus the subsidies and tax credits that make it attractive.
Therefore, they can’t get excited about the jobs being created as a
result of taxpayers’ involuntary investment, nor higher energy costs.
There is a big difference between disdaining solar power and disdaining
the government involvement that gives it an unfair advantage in the
marketplace.

The blog post compares the “solar energy disruption” to what “occurred
when direcTV and Dish started to compete with cable television. More
choices emerged and a whole lot of new jobs were created.” However,
those jobs were created through private investment and the free market—a
fact that, along with solar’s dependence on incentives, he never
mentions. Likewise, the jobs supported by building the Keystone pipeline
would be through private funding.

The blog’s author touts this claim, from the book Clean Disruption:
“Should solar continue on its exponential trajectory, the energy
infrastructure will be 100 percent solar by 2030”—15 years from now.
Even if state and federal governments were to continue to pour money
into solar energy—which, as is pointed out in SPUS, subsidies are
already being dialed back on a variety of fronts—there is no currently
available solution to solar’s intermittency.

SPUS draws upon the example of Germany, which has led the way globally
in solar and other renewables. Over time, the high renewable penetration
has contributed to residential electricity prices more than doubling.
Renewables received favored status, called “priority dispatch,” which
means that, when renewable electricity becomes available, the utilities
must dispatch it first, thereby changing the merit order for thermal
plants. Now many modern, natural gas-fueled plants, as well as coal,
couldn’t operate profitably. As a result, many were shut down, while
several plants were provided “capacity payments” by the government (a
double subsidy) in order to stay online as back-up—which maintains
system stability. In Germany’s push for 80 percent renewable energy by
2050, it has found that despite the high penetration of renewables,
given their inherent intermittency, a large amount of redundancy of
coal- and natural-gas-fueled electricity (nuclear being decommissioned)
is necessary to maintain the reliability of the grid.

As the German experience makes clear, without a major technological
breakthrough to store electricity generated through solar systems, “100
percent solar by 2030” is just one more fantasy.

The blog post ends with this: “the GOP congressional leadership ignores
these new jobs inside an innovative, disruptive energy sector that is
about to sweep across the country it leads—in favor of a vanishingly
small number of mythical Keystone ‘jobs’ that may never materialize. It
makes you wonder. Why?”

The answers can be found in SPUS, which addresses the policy,
regulatory, and consumer protection issues that have manifested
themselves through the rapid rise of solar power and deals with many
more elements than covered here. It concludes: “Solar is an important
part of our energy future, but there must be forethought, taking into
account future costs, jobs, energy reliability and the overall energy
infrastructure already in place. This technology must come online with
the needs of the taxpayer, consumer and ratepayer in mind instead of
giving the solar industry priority.”

Anti-growth, anti-human and bizarrely pro-horse riding: a Green government would be awful.

With the UK General Election only a couple of months away, there has
been much discussion about the Green Party’s growth in popularity. This
is something that both the Greens’ supporters and their detractors are
putting down to disaffected Labour voters going in search of a
progressive, left-wing party that fights for the interests of ordinary
people.

In the 2010 election, then Green Party leader Caroline Lucas won the
Greens their first seat in parliament, and netted them just under one
per cent of the nationwide vote. Despite current leader Natalie
Bennett’s recent car-crash interview on LBC, and a subsequent string of
unimpressive performances, some polls suggest the Greens could win up to
11 per cent of the vote in this election, giving rise to what people
are calling the ‘green surge’. But this surge is based on a sham. The
Green Party is not now, nor has it ever been, a progressive party.
Here’s five reasons why.

1) The Greens are Malthusians

Thomas Malthus is about as far from a progressive man of the people as
you can get: the eighteenth-century cleric’s central idea was that the
poor must be prevented from reproducing in order to stem overpopulation.
And yet Malthusianism is the foundation of Green Party politics. The
party was born in the early Seventies, when a middle-class couple from
Coventry came across an article on overpopulation in Playboy. Solicitor
Lesley Whittaker and her husband Tony, a former Tory councillor, decided
something must be done. They formed the cloyingly named People Party –
the Green Party’s first incarnation. The party subscribed to the
Blueprint for Survival, a manifesto for sustainability by
environmentalist Edward Goldsmith which, among other things, advocated
deindustrialisation, a return to living in small peasant communities,
the sterilisation of women and an end to all immigration. Up to the
early Nineties, the Green Party, and its then spokesman David Icke (he
of lizards-run-the-world fame), still wanted to reduce the UK’s
population by 20million.

Over the past decade, the Greens have attempted to distance themselves
from Malthus’s arguments – perhaps because the only other party
advocating Malthusianism is the BNP. But although the Green Party’s
recently published manifesto makes no mention of overpopulation, its
website still has a population-policy page that talks about striving to
achieve ‘sustainable population levels’. In order to do so, the page
encourages people to live ‘sustainable lifestyles’ – ‘sustainable’, in
this case, being a thinly veiled euphemism for ‘childless’.

2) The Greens are anti-growth and anti-abundance

As the Green Party has distanced itself from its Malthusian roots, it
has had to look for another way to reduce the human footprint. And so it
has focused on curtailing economic growth and people’s consumption
habits. A growing economy that produces more employment, more material
goods and a higher standard of living has always been considered a
desirable and progressive aim. But the Greens are insisting that growth
must stop. Apparently, poor people’s desire to live plusher, more
comfortable lives is nothing more than greed.

The Green Party’s website tells us: ‘Since the beginning of the
Industrial Revolution, society has expected continual increases in
material affluence for the people of the world, and has therefore
relentlessly pursued the goal of economic growth.’ In place of this, the
Greens advocate a shift from material production and prosperity to
something called ‘wellbeing’. The fact that prior to the Industrial
Revolution the vast majority of people in the Western world lived in
unimaginable poverty seems to have escaped the Greens.

3) The Greens hate science and infrastructure

There was a time when, if there was a water shortage, people might think
of constructing a new reservoir. This isn’t how the Greens would like
to do things. We’ve got to make do with what we have, remember? New,
large-scale infrastructure is anathema to the Green ideology. You can’t
go anywhere in Britain without seeing traces of the blight of human
civilisation on the landscape, and the Green Party is having none of it.
The new Green manifesto gloats that the party would spend nothing on
improving roads or expanding airports. What’s more, it plans to continue
to fight for two old Green favourites: bans on nuclear power and
genetically modified crops.

4) Green taxes would hit the poor hardest

Many of the Greens’ killjoy policies, like shutting down zoos and
banning alcohol on planes, would make everyone miserable, regardless of
social standing. But despite the Green Party’s talk of redistributing
wealth and creating a fairer society, most of the Greens’ proposed taxes
would hit the poor the hardest.

Under the party’s proposals, goods and services would be taxed according
to how much damage the party deems these products do to the
environment. So, if you’re less well-off, you can say goodbye to your
carbon-belching car and jetting off for foreign holidays; the Greens’
plan is to make these sorts of luxuries unaffordable for common folk.
Instead, you’ll be told to walk or cycle. And if you’re elderly,
disabled or just lazy, their 2015 manifesto tells us that
‘animal-powered transport, in particular horse-powered transport, is
also sustainable’.

As for exotic luxuries like coffee, bananas and chocolate, these will be
taxed beyond the reach of the average pleb. Maybe if you save up you
can have them at Christmas. Oh, and booze: the Greens want to raise the
price of all alcohol by 50 per cent.

5) People will always come second

Central to the Green ideology is the idea that humanity is a burden on
the planet; that we should be subservient to nature, not masters of it.
The Enlightenment idea that humans should seek to control and dominate
the world around them is wrong, Greens say, as it undermines ‘healthy
interdependence of individual, nature and society’. Instead, the Green
Party believes we need a ‘reduction in the physical burden human
societies place upon our planet’. That ‘burden’ is what most of us call
civilisation. And a lot of us quite like it.

THE Aboriginal leader who backed a $40 billion gas plant in the
Kimberley as a way of creating indigenous jobs has attacked “extreme
nutter” environmentalists who he says derailed the plan but have since
done nothing to help the region’s impoverished people.

Wayne Bergmann, a businessman and former head of the Kimberley Land
Council, told an oil and gas conference in Perth yesterday that suicide
rates and unemployment were rising in the Kimberley due to a paucity of
jobs, especially for younger people.

Telstra director Geoff Cousins and singers Missy Higgins and John Butler
were among those who opposed the use of James Price Point, 60km north
of ­Broome as the site for the Woodside Petroleum project.

The high-profile campaigners joined green groups in arguing against
industrialisation of the remote Kimberley region, which boasts some of
the world’s most spectacular wilderness areas.

Woodside abandoned its plan in 2012 and walked away from a deal with the
KLC to pay $1.5bn in benefits to Kimberley indigenous groups over 30
years in exchange for use of the land at James Price Point.

The company is instead planning to build the plant to process its Browse
Basin gas reserves off the Kimberley coast using floating LNG
technology.

This means that only a fraction of the employment, health and education benefits promised to Aborigines will be delivered.

Mr Bergmann, who lives in Broome, yesterday said the environmentalists
had left the Kimberley and their legacy was “destroying any
opportunities” for Aboriginal people.

“They’re all gone but the region is still in devastation,” he
said. “We’ve still got the highest suicide rates, the lowest
employment (rates).

“Geoffrey Cousins is still living in his house in Sydney — he hasn’t left anything back in our region.

“So I’m driven to create jobs because if our mob don’t have meaning in their life, these statistics are going to continue.”

Mr Cousins has previously defended his role in the campaign and accused
Mr Bergmann of failing to ensure that the 2011 agreement with Woodside
had a “break clause” to ensure payments would flow to Aboriginal
communities even if the company chose a different site for the project.

He said Woodside had a moral obligation to fulfil its promises under the
native title deal and he believed the WA government was responsible for
ensuring Aboriginal people received the same health and education
services that other citizens took for granted.

Mr Cousins was appointed last year as head of the Australian
Conservation Foundation — the country’s largest environmental lobby
group.

Mr Bergmann said since the collapse of the Woodside deal he had turned
his attention to creating jobs for Aboriginal people by helping to form a
maritime company that is on the verge of a major expansion.

He said the company, Aboriginal Maritime Pty Ltd, or AML, was finalising
a share buyback under which its indigenous shareholders will increase
their combined stake to 51 per cent.

Mr Bergmann told the Australasian Oil and Gas conference that he had
been offended by claims by the Maritime Union of Australia that AML was
underpaying its workers. “We’ve grown up fighting for our mob — the very
last thing we are going to do is underpay our workers,” he said.

In January, the Fair Work Commission approved a four-year enterprise bargaining agreement for AML.

The MUA challenged the EBA late last year, saying that it could result
in Aborigines receiving pay and conditions inferior to those of
non-Aborigines.

But FWC commissioner Tim Lee found the agreement provided for pay between 20 per cent and 220 per cent above award rates.

AML is owned by several Aboriginal sporting and business identities, including former AFL stars Dean Rioli and David Wirrpanda.

Not mentioned below is that Alice springs is effectively in the
middle of a desert -- so experiences bright and sunny days most of the
time. There is no way the findings could be generalized to often
cloudy coastal areas

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) today released a study
that shows how up to 10MW of extra solar photovoltaic (PV) could be
installed in the Alice Springs grid without adversely affecting supply
stability.

ARENA CEO Ivor Frischknecht said this additional PV would make a
sizeable difference to the Alice Springs grid, which currently has 4.1MW
of solar and a peak load of almost 55MW in summer.

"The findings of this study are timely and show how more solar PV could
be reliably introduced into Australian electricity networks," Mr
Frischknecht said.

"ARENA provided $242,625 towards the study which was conducted by
Northern Territory (NT) engineering company CAT Projects, and
investigated the impact of large amounts of solar PV on electricity
grids and how to effectively manage it.

"One of the challenges involved in increasing grid-connected solar power
in Australia is how to best manage the local weather impacts, such as
cloud cover.

"CAT Projects used a network of solar monitoring stations to estimate
the maximum number of solar power generators that can be connected to
the Alice Springs electricity grid without energy storage.

Mr Frischknecht said the study found that dispersing solar PV across
geographical locations can effectively counteract its variability within
a network.

"The study shows that building a larger number of smaller installations
and spreading them out, ideally 3-5 kilometers apart in Alice Springs,
can reduce the impact of local cloud cover and smooth overall solar
energy output," Mr Frischknecht said.

"This analysis is very relevant to solar projects currently being
planned in the NT and elsewhere in Australia, and could allow network
planners to increase the amount of solar PV that can be connected to the
network.

"The findings should also allow performance-based Power Purchase
Agreements to be more accurately formulated, potentially lowering the
cost of renewable energy generation.

"Studies like this have a vital role to play in helping to increase
confidence in renewable energy, overcoming barriers and encouraging more
renewables into electricity grids."

The study is now publically available in line with ARENA's commitment to
advance competitive renewable energy technologies and solutions through
knowledge sharing.

The results are available on the analysis of variations in instantaneous weather effects project page.

As of March this year the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) is
under investigation for possible maladjustment of its data by an
Independent Advisory Forum. The BoM scientists say they follow
Worlds Best Practice, but all over the world Meteorological Agencies are
coming under scrutiny. BoM

The world will be watching Australia. The public submission by Drs Judy
Ryan and Marjorie Curtis to the Minister for the Environment Greg Hunt
and the Technical Advisory Forum sets out the historical context which
facilitated what the evidence is suggesting is a politically driven
global scam.

Their submission emailed on 4th March 2015 was CC’d to more than 360
national and international media, political and other interested
entities. It was BCC’d to many more. They find that the public email is a
powerful tool and encourage others all over the world to use it.

Their letter is as follows:

Dear Minister Greg Hunt,

We are writing to thank you for organising an independent investigation
of the Bureau of Meteorology’s data management practices. We trust
that you have received good advice and chosen independent and objective
scientists and statisticians to be members of the Technical
Advisory Forum.

We have been very concerned about the advice you are receiving ever
since we heard you stating publicly that you rely mainly on the advice
from the CSIRO and the BoM.

Unfortunately, as the evidence indicates, scientific integrity in
Australia’s once iconic institutions, such as the Bureau of Meteorology,
(BoM) and our Universities has disintegrated. The scientific
‘peer review’ has also collapsed. For that reason we
reference this document to robust evidence based internet sites. This
includes Wikipedia, which in the discipline of climatology, is more
robust.

The evidence also indicates that the human caused Global Warming
hypothesis and its associated demonisation of carbon dioxide is a global
scam. It is driven by the desire for power by politicians, and
money and prestige for the funded climate scientists.

The evidence shows that the CO2 demonisation scam is well established in
Australia. Unfortunately it has continued under your stewardship
of the Department of Environment. This is illustrated by the unhelpful
response (dated 19th December 2013 ) to my formal complaint to the
Department of Environment. See here

It is further evidenced by the Ombudsman’s final response dated 27th February 2014. See here

However, on the 4th September last year at the Fenner School of
Environmental at the Australian National University a
prominent Australian climate scientist, Professor Michael Raupach,
publicly conceded that the term ‘carbon’ is shorthand for ‘carbon
dioxide’. He also conceded that it is definitely not a pollutant.

Sadly Professor Raupach has passed away, but we will always remember
him and the words he spoke when responding to a question from the
audience. The question and Professor Raupach’s response can be heard
here at 1.06.33 into the recording. See here

Dear Minister, we feel that it is necessary to provide you and the
Technical Advisory Forum members with the historical evidence to what we
believe to be the greatest fraud yet perpetrated against humanity. You
may wonder what a bit of history has to do with the BoM’s
data homogenisation practices, but please read on. We will be as
brief as possible

* Early 1900’s a young ecologist Eugene Odum set out test
the hypothesis that “Nature is in Equilibrium”. His data supported
that hypothesis. He went on to experience wealth and prestige. He wrote
the book , “The Fundamentals of Ecology” . It was published
in 1953, and became a school text book in many different countries.
Consequently, his wealth and prestige increased. The hypothesis that
“Nature is in Equilibrium" also known as the “Balance of Nature”
or “Gaia” prevailed.

* However, with the advent of desktop computers in the
late 1960s the theory was retested by a new generation of ecologists.

* The evidence from all the those later studies showed that no
matter what the sample size the data showed no such relationship. To the
contrary, it showed nature to be a wild thing; a dynamic natural system
with huge variance.

* The nature in equilibrium theory was not only disproven but discredited in the 70s. See here

* It was replaced by chaos theory which states that “In the disciplines
of Meteorology …..and Biology…….Small differences in initial conditions
(such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation) yield
widely diverging outcomes for such dynamical systems, rendering
long-term prediction impossible in general. See here

* The problem was that there was much money, power and corruption
associated with the Gaia theory by that time. Eugene Odum,
already wealthy, became a member of the hugely influential entrepreneur
orientated ” Club of Rome”. He was highly regarded by the establishment
until he died peacefully in 2002 aged 88.

History shows that it was a grave error of judgement by the
academic establishment of the time not to investigate Eugene Odum for
possible scientific fraud. The ramifications of that error were
profound. Chaos theory was quietly discarded and in the early 1970’s the
disproven Gaia theory was resurrected and rechristened “Sustainability”
.

One only has to look at the 2009 Australian High School Science
curriculum to realise that the disproven Gaia is still the order
of the day in our country. See here

To quote the bottom two lines from page 6 “Order and
change are necessary ideas to understand systems. Understanding systems
provides the basis for appreciating the nature of equilibrium and
interdependence.”

Australia dare not allow history to repeat itself in our nation. For if
we do, the Gaia scam and all its associated academic funding scams will
continue and science in Australia will continue to be mired in
uncertainty.

The definition of fraud is, “a false representation of a matter of fact,
whether by words or by conduct, by false or misleading allegations, or
by concealment of that which should have been disclosed, which deceives
and is intended to deceive another so that he shall act upon it to his
legal injury.” (Black’s Law Dictionary).

It is true that the Australian people are experiencing financial
disadvantage as a result of the host of policies and administrative
decisions driven by advice regarding the science of climate change. Is
that advice false or misleading? Does it deceive by concealing or
omitting or embellishing or misrepresenting relevant facts?

You may wonder how this definition could apply to the BoM.
Please read on. During Professor Karoly’s time as editor of Australian
Meteorological and Oceanographic Journal he and other scientists
published a paper in AMOJ Vol 62, 2012. To quote
from the paper “Trend analysis confirmed that the 1.1 °C
increase in maximum temperature and 0.9 °C increase in minimum
temperature since 1960 are the largest and most significant trends in
Southeastern Australian temperature in the last 152 years”.

The evidence indicates that those predictions were based on weather
stations where the BoM may have maladjusted the data. See here

This is one of the issues the Technical Advisory Forum will no doubt be addressing.

It is our humble opinion that a legitimate question is; have BoM
scientists disseminated information to the Australian people in a
deceptive manner. Does their behaviour meet Black’s
legal definition above.

We believe that Australia with its strong democracy under the Abbott
government needs to take strong steps to address the climate change
scam. The historical evidence indicates that Australia should hold
the Australian perpetrators accountable. Australia can lead the
world back to scientific integrity and sanity.

In closing we reiterate we are two senior citizens expressing the
opinion we formed as a result of our own research. Whether the evidence
backs it up or is for others to decide. The BoM scientists are
openly copied in to this email. We request them to respond by clicking
reply all if they dispute anything we have said.

Royal commission is set to debate a proposed plan from SA senator to expand nuclear industry

FREE power, no payroll tax and no motor vehicle tax. Sounds pretty
great, right? That is what South Australian Senator, Sean Edwards is
touting if the state expands its nuclear energy industry.

According to the Liberal senator, the state would be able to access ten
of billions of dollars from the global nuclear industry if they are
allowed to store rods and nuclear waste from other countries.

“The science is in. The process is proven and we have a first mover
advantage which would see us generate wealth akin to being the Saudis of
the South,” he told the Adelaide Advertiser.

The senator believes it would turn South Australia into a “special
economic zone” which would further attract business investment.

Mr. Edwards has thrown his weight behind the project. He has reportedly
met with countries interested in partnering with the state government
and has briefed Trade Minister Andrew Robb and Industry Minister Ian
Macfarlane on the details. All while promising huge economic incentives
to the people of his state.

Ziggy Switkowski, former CEO of Telstra, is a nuclear physicist who is
the former head of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology
Organisation. He told TheAdelaide Advertiser that the program could
“represent billions of dollars of revenue each year.”

Mr. Switkowski reviewed the industry for the Howard Government in 2006
and believes the improvements in science and technology have helped
convince people of its safety.

A Royal Commission on the matter was announced last month with SA
premier saying “it is now time to engage in a mature and robust
conversation.”

It’s a debate that WA Greens Senator, Scott Ludlam said we need to have if only to “put the issue to bed once and for all.”

Nuclear energy has consistency proved to be one of the most viscerally
divisive issues in politics so it comes as no surprise that the state’s
proposal has been met with criticism by some members of the public.

Yesterday marked the fourth anniversary of the Fukishima nuclear
disaster and opponents of Mr. Edwards plan took to the steps of the
Adelaide parliament to protest the Royal Commission’s inquiry.

Dr. Jim Green, from Friends of the Earth, Australia attended the protest
and told ABC radio that he was there to for two reasons. To lend his
sympathy to the 160,000 Japanese who remain displaced from the Fukishima
disaster and to send a message to the government that they’re “not
happy about the terms of reference” of the inquiry.

The inquiry’s terms of reference will focus on uranium enrichment,
nuclear generation and waste storage. Opponents of nuclear energy say
the focus of the inquiry is disproportionately skewed towards the
positive financial benefits without adequately accounting for the
dangers.

Dr. Green would like to see uranium mining and previous nuclear programs
such as Radium Hill and the Port Perry Uranium processing site included
in the inquiry. Both sites sit deserted and serve as a reminder to Dr.
Green of the perils of nuclear power.

A cartoon implies that the only casualty from Fukishima was the future of the nuclear ind

A cartoon implies that the only casualty from Fukishima was the future
of the nuclear industry as the body of a man representing the nuclear
power industry lies dead. Source: Supplied

In the past Prime Minister Tony Abbott has expressed his willingness to
have nuclear power play a greater role in providing the energy needs of
Australia. Yesterday he said he is “very interested” in the upcoming
inquiry.

The inquiry starts next week however the consultation on the draft terms of reference close tomorrow.

So with just a single day left for the public to submit their opinion on
the issue, perhaps it’s worth asking the question: At what price should
we be willing to become a nuclear dumping ground?

Mr Abbott touched down in Mount Gambier this week, where he faced a
protest from South Australian farmers over fracking, a practice used to
extract gas from within the earth.

Farmers at the protest expressed concern fracking would damage prime agricultural land and contaminate water supplies.

The Prime Minister said Australia should be "cautious" about
unconventional gas mining but deflected decision-making to state
governments.

A parliamentary inquiry into fracking in the south-east of SA is
underway, with a committee due to make recommendations to State
Government ministers after analysing submissions and hearings.

Mr Abbott said he did not want to see any practice that would
"jeopardise the long-term future of some of the finest agricultural
country" in Australia but did not commit to a national inquiry.

"I think it's important that the State Government should take seriously
the inquiry, which has now been launched by Liberal members of the South
Australia Parliament and let's see what the inquiry comes up with," he
said.

"So far it seems that the problems people fear have not arisen but, when in doubt, it's best to proceed with caution.

According to a recent article in the Australian Financial Review, Screen
Australia, Screen Queensland, and Screen West, and you too, are
contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars to an anti-fracking
documentary called Frackman.

The documentary tracks Queensland resident, “pig shooter and accidental
activist” Dayne Pratzsky on his escapades, including trespassing on
private land, and getting arrested at anti-fracking protests.

So far, Screen Australia has invested $200,000 of your money in the
film, plus giving it a $435,000 tax credit offered to films with
significant Australian content and expenditure.

Screen Queensland has invested $220,000 of taxpayer money, while Screen West has contributed $156,000.

Former Queensland Arts Minister, Ian Walker, pointed out that Screen
Queensland was an independent body, and its decisions were not based on
political criteria, but on artistic merit, but we still have a few
questions.

WasteWatch is neither for nor against fracking; we will leave that
debate to people who know more about it. And we are not suggesting for
one second that the film ought not to be made or screened.

But forcing the taxpayer to fund it, when it has already taken a side in
a controversial question of public policy? We wonder if that might not
be a bit much.

Steve Wright, a director of the Energy Resource Information Centre,
seems to have already made up his mind. He calls the film “an
anti-industry campaign tool,” and “a big element of the activist
toolkit” in the anti-fracking campaign.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

15 March, 2015

The Streisand effect is kicking in

From Wikipedia: "The Streisand effect is the phenomenon whereby
an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the
unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely,
usually facilitated by the Internet. It is named after American
entertainer Barbra Streisand, whose 2003 attempt to suppress photographs
of her residence in Malibu, California inadvertently drew further
public attention to it."

A Warmist site has just put up an
article about the "the small network of hired pundits and scientists
helping to sow doubt about climate science". They then list the
Devils concerned and give a bit of information about each
one. So they are effectively letting the cat out of the bag about
the "settled Science" claim. They are making known to people I
would never reach that the science is not settled -- and give
information to their readers that could lead them to the dissenting
voices concerned. They are busting their own coverup of
dissent. And their list of villains is a long one -- further
crashing the "consensus" claim.

Because the list is so
long, I reproduce only a few entries below, including
mine. But the complete list is a handy guide to anyone interested
in climate skepticism.

And you can even look below for
people who have won the "Noble" [sic] Prize! The authors' spelling
is as defective as their science. They are probably unaware that
there once was a guy named Alfred Nobel

Their assertion that all
the people they list are "hired" pundits is a psychopathic lie.
Most of us have never received a cent from anybody in connection with
our writings on climate. They just lie with gay abandon and no
concern for evidence, as psychopaths do

In the months before the debut of the new documentary film "Merchants of
Doubt," long-time climate denialist Fred Singer contacted more than two
dozen bloggers, public relations specialists and scientists asking for
help in derailing the documentary’s release.

"Can I sue for damages?” Singer asked in an email last October. "Can we get an injunction against the documentary?"

Singer is one of the "merchants of doubt" identified in the documentary,
as are a number of other recipients of his email. The documentary,
released nationwide last week, exposes the small network of hired
pundits and scientists helping to sow doubt about climate science and
delay legislative action on global warming in the United States.

Singer's email became public earlier this week when it was leaked to journalists.

Many of those copied on the email thread, such as Singer and
communications specialist Steven Milloy, have financial ties to the
tobacco, chemical, and oil and gas industries and have worked to defend
them since the 1990s. Others seem relatively new to the denialist camp,
such as climate scientist Judith Curry. All, however, have been vocal
before Congress, on broadcast news or on the Internet in arguing that
human activity is not the primarily driver of climate change.

Here is InsideClimate News' guide to those who were on the emails, in alphabetical order:

Timothy Ball

A retired geography professor from the University of Winnipeg, Ball says
he doesn't believe humans are behind climate change. The "claim" of the
United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that humans
are almost solely responsible for global warming "is not proven except
in their computer models and cannot be proven until we understand how
much climate varies naturally," he wrote on his website.

Joe Bastardi

Bastardi has a bachelor's degree in meteorology and worked at
Accuweather before joining WeatherBELL Analytics LLC, a meteorological
consulting firm. Last September, Bastardi told the website
beforeitsnews.com, "Nature, not man, rules the climate system." He said
the people who participated in the People's Climate March were "more
concerned with their political agenda than climate science," and that
they shouldn't be "prostituting the weather and climate for [their] own
needs."

William Briggs

Briggs is a statistician at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., and a
consultant at New York Methodist Hospital. More than two decades ago, he
spent a year as a meteorologist for the National Weather Service. He is
listed as an expert on the Heartland Institute's website, where he
wrote, "Climate change is of no real interest to anyone except
climatologists." Earlier this year, he co-wrote an article in the
peer-reviewed Chinese Science Bulletin with fellow climate denialists
Christopher Monckton and Willie Soon arguing that the IPCC's models are
inaccurate and the world won't warm dangerously this century.

Judith Curry

Curry is a professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at
Georgia Institute of Technology. During a January 2014 hearing before
the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Curry said the
problem of climate change has been "vastly oversimplified." She said
scientists should pay more attention to the role of natural variability
in the climate system and the uncertainties in climate modeling. She
also said the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is overly
confident in attributing most of the warming to human activity.

Joe D'Aleo

D'Aleo is a former Weather Channel meteorologist and executive director
of Icecap.us, a project that seeks to connect "respected scientists and
journalists that are not deniers," but who don't believe human activity
is the main driver of global warming. Last May, D'Aleo was one of 15
climate skeptics who wrote a rebuttal to the White House's National
Climate Assessment report. "As this rebuttal makes clear, the NCA
provides no scientific basis whatsoever for regulating CO2 emissions,"
they wrote.

Greenie Watch

The Greenie Watch blog is run by Australian social scientist John Ray.
It questions the scientific evidence for global warming. "Climate is
just the sum of weather. So if you cannot forecast the weather a month
in advance, you will not be able to forecast the climate 50 years in
advance," he wrote on his blog's home page. In response to the release
of Fred Singer's emails about the film "Merchants of Doubt," Ray wrote,
"We skeptics have got Warmists on the defense, a pathetic 'ad hominem'
defense though it is."

William Happer

Happer is a physicist at Princeton University and an outspoken critic of
global warming. He has repeatedly called global warming trends
"exaggerated." In a TV interview last year, he compared the scientific
community's treatment of carbon dioxide to "the demonization of poor
Jews under Hitler." During President George H. W. Bush's term, Happer
was director of the office of energy research at the Department of
Energy.

Patrick J. Michaels

Michaels is the director of the Center for the Study of Science at the
Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Washington, D.C. He
was long considered the most credible scientist in the climate denial
campaign. He was the president of the American Association of State
Climatologists and an IPCC author, sharing the 2007 Noble Peace Prize
with other contributing scientists. But Michaels—who at one point
estimated 40 percent of his funding came from the fossil fuel
industry—has been caught repeatedly making inaccurate climate claims,
including on Fox News and in the Washington Post and Forbes.

Roger Pielke

Roger Pielke Sr., a controversial climate scientist, said he believes
that "humans have altered the climate system." However, he also supports
the idea that warming has recently stopped and has argued against some
well-established points of climate science, such as observed sea level
rise and glacier melting. Pielke holds the position of senior research
scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental
Studies. He also is a senior research associate the University of
Colorado in Boulder. It's unclear whether the intended recipient of an
email thread concerning "Merchants of Doubt" was Pielke himself, or his
son Roger Pielke Jr. His son is a policy researcher at the Center for
Science and Technology in Colorado and has criticized those who have
linked climate change to increasingly extreme weather.

S. Fred Singer

Singer is one of the earliest and most vocal scientists in the climate
denial campaign. He was an academic and government space researcher for
nearly four decades before working on behalf of the tobacco industry to
discredit scientific evidence that smoking was bad for human
health. In the early 1990s, he started attacking global warming.
He founded an anti climate-action think tank, the Science and
Environmental Policy Project, using fossil fuel funds. The group has
denied the existence of man-made climate change for 25 years. He also
created the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change
(NIPCC), a publication of junk science that counters the UN’s
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's work. He has called the
IPCC's latest assessment "a wonderful paper weight or door stop."

Wei-Hock (Willie) Soon

Soon, a solar physicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics, has posited that increased energy from the sun—not the
burning of fossil fuels—is the biggest driver of modern climate change.
His theory has been widely refuted by the scientific community,
including the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the
National Academy of Sciences. In February, public documents showed that
Soon received hundreds of thousands of dollars from fossil fuel
interests to publish "deliverables" in the form of articles about the
solar-warming theory in scientific journals. He failed to disclose
conflicts of interests to those journals and during congressional
testimony. Soon also has ties to several conservative, climate-denying
think tanks, including the Heartland Institute and the Committee for a
Constructive Tomorrow.

Roy Spencer

Spencer is a scientist at the University of Alabama-Huntsville and a
former senior scientist for climate studies at NASA's Marshall Space
Flight Center. He says he believes natural fluctuations in the climate
system could be the primary driver of global warming. During a Senate
hearing in July 2013, Spencer told the committee humans "are having some
influence" on climate change, "but it is impossible to know with any
level of certainty how much influence."

Anthony Watts

Watts edits the blog Watts Up With That, which questions climate science
and presents, "the untold story of the climate debate from the climate
skeptic side." Watts studied electrical engineering and meteorology at
Purdue University but never graduated. He then served as an on-air
meteorologist for 25 years. He's a frequent speaker at anti-climate
action events hosted by the Heartland Institute. "I believe that our
[man-made] contribution [to climate change] may be far less than has
been postulated," he told a California newspaper in 2007. "Our
measurement network has been compromised—not intentionally, but
accidentally and through carelessness."

Their support for Warmism has rotted their brains. See the excerpt
below. They even call CO2 "the most prominent greenhouse gas" when
Warmist scientists always concede that the major effect is from water
vapor rather than from CO2.

And they claim that a fall in
atmospheric CO2 of only 7ppm caused major effects. We have seen
much bigger changes that in recent times with NO effects.

The
bit of speculation below is more a verbal fart than anything to do with
science. The CO2 fall is their only scientific datum. The
rest is just navel-gazing

The atmosphere recorded the mass death, slavery and war that followed
1492. The death by smallpox and warfare of an estimated 50 million
native Americans—as well as the enslavement of Africans to work in the
newly depopulated Americas—allowed forests to grow in former farmlands.
By 1610, the growth of all those trees had sucked enough carbon dioxide
out of the sky to cause a drop of at least seven parts per million in
atmospheric concentrations of the most prominent greenhouse gas and
start a little ice age. Based on that dramatic shift, 1610 should be
considered the start date of a new, proposed geologic epoch—the
Anthropocene, or recent age of humanity—according to the authors of a
new study.

"Placing the Anthropocene at this time highlights the idea that
colonialism, global trade and the desire for wealth and profits began
driving Earth towards a new state," argues ecologist Simon Lewis of the
University of Leeds and University College London. "We are a geological
force of nature, but that power is unlike any other force of nature in
that it is reflexive, and can be used, withdrawn or modified."

Lewis and his U.C.L. colleague, geologist Mark Maslin, dub the decrease
in atmospheric carbon dioxide the "Orbis spike," from the Latin for
world, because after 1492 human civilization has progressively
globalized. They make the case that human impacts on the planet have
been dramatic enough to warrant formal recognition of the Anthropocene
epoch and that the Orbis spike should serve as the marker of the start
of this new epoch in a paper published in Nature on March 12.
(Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.)

Researchers have advanced an array of proposals for when this putative
new epoch might have begun. Some link it to the start of the mass
extinction of large mammals such as woolly mammoths and giant kangaroos
some 50,000 years ago or the advent of agriculture around 10,000 years
ago. Others say the Anthropocene is more recent, tied to the beginning
of the uptick of atmospheric CO2 concentrations after the invention of
an effective coal-burning steam engine.

The invaluable site for movie buffs who are also interested in the
box-office business of film is BoxOfficeMojo. That site reports that
“Merchants of Doubt” has earned $23,300 in the four theaters in which it
opened on Friday. So that means … “Merchants of Doubt” had the 314th
best opening weekend ever for a documentary film in the United States!
What an achievement!

Overall, “Merchants of Doubt” finished $40 better than the 1999 opening
of “American Movie” (#315), and just $55 behind 2008’s “Gunnin’ for that
#1 Spot” (#313). Never heard of those movies? Neither has anyone else –
and neither will anyone hear of, nor long remember, “Merchants of
Doubt.” But, for those curious about the company this film keeps:

“American Movie” (1999) is a “documentary about an aspiring filmmaker’s
attempts to finance his dream project by finally completing the
low-budget horror film he abandoned years before.”

“Gunnin’ for That #1 Spot” (2008) is a documentary about “eight of the
U.S.’s top high school basketball players [competing] in the first
‘Elite 24? tournament at Rucker Park.” That film should have been helped
by the fact that it was directed by Adam Yauch, better known as the
late, great “MCA” of the legendary rap group Beastie Boys. It still only
made a total of $50,804.

The market has spoken … again. The public just ain’t buying what the
climate alarmists are selling – even at what is going to be an enormous
loss for the producers of “Merchants of Doubt.” Couldn’t happen to a
better group of film-makers whose piece of expensive propaganda
demonized researchers who adhere to the scientific method. You’d be much
better informed if you read Russell Cook’s excellent “Merchants of
Smear.”

I just attended the premier in DC with Michael Mann and Katherine Hayhoe
in the audience. It was a small theater and there was no one else in my
row,

Most of the movie was about the tobacco industry in the 1960's.
Then they showed a few clips of skeptics, and intermixed them with clips
of 1960's tobacco crooks. The idea was that anyone who questions a
scientific theory, is a big tobacco paid child killer.

Katherine admitted after the movie that the only people who were going
to watch it were people who already believed Al Gore's sci-fi flick.

EPA Administrator: Coffee at Risk Due to Climate Change

Climate change is bad for EVERYTHING. Good that we don't seem
to be having any. We could always drink dandelion coffee,
though. It's not too bad if you grow your own dandelions and have
it fresh. And dandelions are worldwide!

In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington,
D.C., on Wednesday, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator
Gina McCarthy said that “climate change puts the world’s coffee-growing
regions at risk.”

“Growth depends on a safe environment and a stable climate,” she said.
“We can no longer accept the false premise that pollution is somehow
part of the growing pains of growth. If that’s your premise, then the
foundation of that growth was not built to last. It was wrongly
designed.

“Climate change isn’t just a moral responsibility we must accept. It’s an economic opportunity we can seize.”

McCarthy not only emphasized the economic effects of climate change, but said that it posed a “national security concern.”

“Once you open your eyes, you’ll realize that climate is not just an
environmental issue. It is a fundamental economic issue and national
security challenge,” McCarthy said.

“It’s no surprise that according to the American Security Project, 70
percent of the world’s countries explicitly call climate change a
national security concern.”

Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast says Democratic U.S. Sens. Ed
Markey, Barbara Boxer, and Sheldon Whitehouse should be ashamed of
themselves for abusing their offices as part of a campaign to
“stigmatize and demonize” those who are skeptical of a human-caused
climate crisis.

Bast’s remarks come in response to the senators’ February 25 letter
demanding funding, planning, and organizational details from The
Heartland Institute and 99 other businesses and nonprofit organizations
that question the causes and consequences of global warming.

“Shame on you for abusing your public office in an attempt to silence
public debate on such an important public policy topic,” Bast wrote in
his letter, mailed yesterday. “I am grateful that a majority of members
on the Committee on Environment and Public Works has strongly condemned
your views and tactics.”

The three Democratic senators sent their February 25 letter in the wake
of misleading news reports about prominent climate scientist Dr.
Wei-Hock “Willie” Soon, who works for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics. Bast also defended Dr. Soon, who has presented scientific
findings at several climate conferences organized by Heartland.

“You repeat the vicious libel that Dr. Wei-Hock ‘Willie’ Soon failed to
disclose funding for his work,” Bast wrote. “Are you not aware that
neither his employer, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics,
nor the journal that published the scholarly article in question,
Science Bulletin, has found Dr. Soon violated any of their rules or
disclosure policies? Who asked you to repeat that lie?”

“I am very proud to report that The Heartland Institute has spent
millions of dollars over the past ten years supporting scientific
research that contradicts alarmist claims about climate change,” Bast
wrote. “The New York Times calls us ‘the primary American organization
pushing climate change skepticism.’ The Times is not a credible source
on this topic, but you three probably find it persuasive.”

Bast also told Sens. Markey, Boxer, and Whitehouse that the totality of
the information they will receive about Heartland’s funding,
organization, and programs can be found on Heartland’s websites
including www.heartland.org.

Another ship sets out to Antarctica to "show" impact of global warming

They are incapable of showing any such thing. It's just a thin
excuse for having fun in boats. If cooling were the current
wisdom, they would be saying that they were sailing to "show" the
effect of cooling

Robert Swan is a “polar explorer, environmentalist and the first man
ever to walk unsupported to both the North and South Poles,” according
to his site 2041. Swan walked to the South Pole in 1984 and the North
Pole in 1989. Since then, he has traveled to Antarctica 35 times. His
journeys inspired him to launch 2041 to protect Antarctica. The name
comes from the date when the world’s moratoriums on mining and drilling
in Antarctica will expire. Its mission is “to build personal leadership
skills among people who choose to embrace the challenge of sustaining
all forms of life—in their families, communities, organizations and the
planet.”

Next week, he and his 2041 team will journey to the last great
wilderness on Earth. The International Antarctic Expedition 2015 will
bring together people from around the world to “debate, discuss and
determine firsthand the effects of climate change.” The team will assess
the effects of temperature rise on Antarctica and, upon return, the
team plans to educate the public and hopefully spur action on climate
change.

Swan has been recognized for his work with an appointment as UN Goodwill
Ambassador for Youth and Special Envoy to the Director General of
UNESCO. He’s even been knighted as an Officer of the Most Excellent
Order of the British Empire. Since 2003, he has taken 1,100 people from
72 nations to Antarctica “in hopes that it will ignite their passion for
preservation.” Swan says, “The greatest threat to our planet is the
belief that someone else will save it.”

This year’s expedition begins on March 13, in Ushuaia, Argentina, the
southernmost city in the world. From there, the team will embark on
their ship, Sea Spirit, to Antarctica. With stops at Cuverville Island,
Neko Harbour, Paradise Harbour and Lemaire Channel, the team will get an
expansive tour of the icy continent. The team will also stop at King
George Island, the location of the 2041 E-Base, the first education
station in Antarctica made with sustainable products and powered by
renewable energy. In 2008, Swan successfully became the first person in
Antarctic history to live for two weeks solely on renewable energy. On
March 25, the 2041 team will return to Ushuaia.

Dr. Marcus Eriksen, co-founder of 5 Gyres Institute, will be on Swan’s
Antarctica expedition and will provide blog posts to EcoWatch. Stay
tuned.

In a Ted Talk last October, Swan explains the importance of these
expeditions: “We need to listen to what these places are telling us,” he
said. “And if we don’t, we will end up with our own survival situation
here on planet Earth.”

The gravity of Antarctica’s ice melt is severe. The continent holds 90
percent of the world’s ice and 70 percent of the world’s freshwater,
according to Swan. The sea level rise from Antarctica’s ice melt would
reshape the world as we know it. [It would but it isn't]

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

13 March, 2015

Vicious VICE on HBO

An email to them from Marc Morano below:

Hi Ahmad,

Just watched the show and I must say you conflated my comments. In the
broadcast you put in all of these comments from me about 'sea ice.' Not
land ice. Then you imply that I am confused on the difference between
the two. On the contrary!

Please watch the full interview I gave you at the Heartland conference
in DC, I clearly made a distinction and even talked to the interviewer
about how people get confused between the two.

Your show lacked any perspective on how long these glacial melt fears
have been around and it was rank propaganda to have me discussing 'sea
ice' and implying I am confused when you omitted my discussion of land
based ice.

If I cared enough about the broadcast, I would be upset. But you should
at least alert your staff and re watch my full interview. I think you
will find you are guilty of misrepresenting my views, perhaps because of
ignorance on your production staff. Either way, you omitted my
discussion of land-based ice.

80-yr-old Weather Channel Founder Explains the History of the Global Warming Fraud

The video below is from a year ago but it is quite an evergreen and is well worth repeating

John Coleman, 80-year-old award-winning meteorologist and founder of the
Weather Channel explains the history of the global warming fraud.

“Politics had gotten in the way of the science.” Coleman explains that there is no man-made global warming, and he’s sure of it.

Coleman says:

“I love our wonderful planet Earth. If I thought it was threatened by
global warming, I would devote my life to stopping the warming!”

Now they call it “climate change” instead of global warming, because the
warming has stopped, says Coleman, and that $4.7 billion in taxpayer
money is funding “bogus reports” and “bogus research.”

At about the 11:30, Coleman begins a detailed explanation about just how
the global warming fraud was started and heated up, including how Al
Gore got involved in the movement

This is a 36 minute video concerning the Global Warming Fraud by the man
who started the Weather Channel way back when. He takes the
viewer through all the steps and stages of the subject and tells us to
"follow the money".

Global Warming started with Professor Roger Revell (1909-1991) and after
much research Prof. Revell's conclusion was that global
warming was indeed a hoax.

Former Vice Pres. Al Gore figures prominently in this narrative,
starting with being a "D" student of Pro. Revell at Harvard, receiving
prestigious awards, turning on Prof. Revell and then refusing any debate
on the issue of Global Warming, now changed to the semantically PC
wording Climate Change.

The Guardian has embarked on a campaign to put climate change in the
spotlight again. Starting last weekend it used the first pages of its
print edition to publish comments by high profile campaigners like Naomi
Klein, Bill McKibben and George Monbiot. These were accompanied by
powerful artwork from Anthony Gormley, Nele Azevedo and Judy Watson. The
motto of the campaign is 'Keep it in the ground', don't burn the vast
amounts of fossil fuels that are still buried underground. Otherwise we
would fry the planet.

The campaign kicked off with Naomi Klein. She asks 'What is wrong with us?'

"A great many of us engage in this kind of climate change denial. We
look for a split second and then we look away. Or we look but then turn
it into a joke (“more signs of the Apocalypse!”). Which is another way
of looking away. Or we look but tell ourselves comforting stories about
how humans are clever and will come up with a technological miracle that
will safely suck the carbon out of the skies or magically turn down the
heat of the sun. Which, I was to discover while researching this book,
is yet another way of looking away."

Framing the issue in this way prompts the question 'Why do we look away
when confronted with so many other, more devastating issues, causing
harm in the here and now?' We (as human civilization, community of
states, societies) have not found ways to stop war, economic crises, or
inequality. Compared to these issues that cause daily human suffering,
harm and death, climate change is a distant threat. Framing the issue in
the way Klein does makes it rational not to put climate change on the
top of the political agenda.

Klein believes that there is a solution to the problem of climate change
which makes us all better off, through reclaiming democracy, blocking
free trade deals, nationalising energy and water, etc. There is a lot of
wishful thinking in this, and the belief that all the good things go
together. Somehow in this process carbon emissions will go down, and we
will live happily ever after.

While Klein's vision is to get rid of capitalism in order to solve the
climate problem, Bill KcKibben thinks that technical solutions are
available, and made operational by some big capitalist firms:

"None of the problems the fossil fuel players keep predicting for
renewables seem decisive. Yes, the sun goes down at night, but that
tends to be when the wind kicks up. We’re learning to store peak power
in all kinds of ways: a California auction for new power supply was won
by a company that uses extra solar energy to freeze ice, which then
melts during the day to supply power. The smart meters now coming on
line around the world allow utilities to juggle demand, turning off your
water heater when its not needed.

Wise companies have either seen the future or learned their lesson:
E.ON, Germany’s biggest utility, announced last year that it will now
focus on wind and sun. “We are the first to resolutely draw the
conclusion from the change of the energy world,” chief executive
Johannes Teyssen told reporters in Dusseldorf. “We’re convinced that
energy companies will have to focus on one of the two energy worlds if
they want to be successful.”

Again, a fair amount of wishful thinking, and a big ask of consumers to
accept demand based pricing of energy based on surveillance
technologies. Be that as it may, both his and Klein's visions are based
on the problems of the Western rich countries, where carbon emissions
will peak soon. What about the rising demand in cheap energy in the rest
of the world?

Step up George Monbiot, making the slogan 'Keep it in the ground'
operational. He suggests the Paris summit in December should adopt a
document along these lines:

"Scientific assessments of the carbon contained in existing fossil fuel
reserves suggest that full exploitation of these reserves is
incompatible with the agreed target of no more than 2C of global
warming. The unrestricted extraction of these reserves undermines
attempts to limit greenhouse gas emissions. We will start negotiating a
global budget for the extraction of fossil fuels from existing reserves,
as well as a date for a moratorium on the exploration and development
of new reserves. In line with the quantification of the fossil carbon
that can be extracted without a high chance of exceeding 2C of global
warming, we will develop a timetable for annual reductions towards that
budget. We will develop mechanisms for allocating production within this
budget and for enforcement and monitoring.”

The consequence of such a policy would be that prices for fossil fuels
rise massively. In the absence of alternative sources this would have
serious impacts on economic activity and social wellbeing. Either there
is some wishful thinking that somehow we will have solved the problem of
renewables just in time, or a complete disregard about these issues
because of the need to 'save the planet'. Again, there can be no
surprise that such proposals will not find political traction.

The good thing about the Guardian is that it also has comment pages
where such grand visions are brought back to reality. Today Mark Lynas
has such a comment which demonstrates how such campaigns are unlikely to
change much, because the issue is polarised, and the contributions
published so far only help deepening the polarisation.

"The Guardian’s climate campaign is, in principle, very welcome. But it
risks reinforcing this polarisation by leading with two extensive
extracts from Naomi Klein’s latest book, This Changes Everything:
Climate vs Capitalism. Lefties will lap it up; others will see it as
evidence that science has been appropriated as cover for an ideological
project.

For Klein, whose career has always focused on fighting capitalism,
climate change merely means we must renew that fight. It doesn’t seem to
strike her as odd or fortuitous that this new “crisis”, which she
admits she’s only lately discovered, should “change everything” for
everyone else but merely reinforce her own decades-old ideological
position. Her analysis of the problem is the same as for all the rest of
today’s challenges – that it is the fault of multinational
corporations, “market fundamentalism” and the “elites”, who in her view
control the media and democratic politics.

Depressingly, all this confirms what social psychologists have long
insisted: that most people accept only scientific “facts” that are
compatible with or which reinforce their political identities and
worldviews. The environmental left leapt on climate science because it
seemed to confirm deeply held notions of the planet being fragile, and
modern civilisation being in essence destructive. Moreover, climate
science at last seemed to herald the global doom that the eco-Malthusian
left had always hoped for.

All of this makes climate change much harder to deal with than it would
otherwise be. In insisting that tackling carbon emissions must be
subordinated into a wider agenda of social revolution and the
dismantling of corporate capitalism, Klein isn’t making climate
mitigation easier: she is making it politically toxic. In rejecting “too
easy” solutions such as nuclear power and advanced renewables
technologies (the dreaded “technofix”), the left puts its cards on the
table – and confirms what the right has always suspected: that climate
mitigation is not a primary but at best a secondary goal.

This is also a debate conducted in a western bubble. No one in India
doubts that the emergence from poverty of hundreds of millions of people
in south Asia will require the production of prodigious amounts more
energy – far more than could ever be compensated for by any remotely
plausible “energy austerity” path taken by the west. Don’t forget: rich
OECD countries have already peaked their CO2 emissions, so pretty much
all the future growth will come from Asia, Africa and South America".

It's no secret that solar power is hot right now, with innovators and
big name companies alike putting a great deal of time, money, and effort
into improving these amazing sources of renewable energy. Still, the
last thing you'd likely expect is for a new experimental array to
literally light nearly 130 birds in mid-flight on fire.

And yet, that's exactly what happened near Tonopah, Nevada last month
during tests of the 110-megawatt Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project.

According to Rudy Evenson, Deputy Chief of Communications for Nevada
Bureau of Land Management (NBLM) in Reno, as reported by Re Wire, a
third of the newly constructed plant was put into action on the morning
of Jan. 14, redirecting concentrated solar energy to a point 1,200 feet
above the ground.

Unfortunately, about two hours into the test, engineers and biologists
on site started noticing "streamers" - trails of smoke and steam caused
by birds flying directly into the field of solar radiation. What
moisture was on them instantly vaporized, and some instantly burst into
flames - at least, until they began to frantically flap away. An
estimated 130 birds were injured or killed during the test.

But worry not, green home owners. The solar energy we are talking about
here is not like the solar panels that top your roofs. Solar panels
don't produce enough heat to cause such a scene.

The plant in question, which was expected to come at least partially
online this month, runs on 17,500 heliostat mirrors - each the size of
your average garage door - that concentrate and reflect thermal solar
energy at a tall center tower. This tower uniquely contains molten salt,
of all things, which is circulated to produce steam and generate
electricity. Excess heat is stored in the salt and can be used to
generate power for up to 10 hours, including during the evening hours
and when direct sunlight is not available.

As a self-sustaining energy source that only needs water and sunlight,
the new plant certainly sounds like a boon for the natural world.

"The Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project will reduce the nation's
reliance on fossil energy supplies, producing enough solar energy in one
year equivalent to about one-eighth of the total output of Hoover Dam,"
developer Solar Reserve announced during the groundbreaking of the
project in 2011.

What's more, this isn't even the first plant of this kind to be seen in
the United States. The Mojave desert is home to an older heliostat power
plant more than 10 times this latest project's size. Called the Ivanpah
Solar Electric Generating System, this plant boasts a stunning 300,000
solar mirrors to heat a specially designed "water furnace" (which is
less efficient than the molten salt appropach).

Unfortunately, the redirected sunlight causes such a wide sphere of
superheated radiation that the plant sees one streamer every two
minutes, according to investigator estimates.

Officials behind the project have refuted that claim, saying that most
of the streamers are floating trash or wayward insects, but federal
wildlife officials have begun calling these 'eco-friendly' power towers
"mega traps" for wildlife.

According to The Associated Press (AP), many biologists call the number
of deaths "significant" and suspect that the streamers are caused by a
chain of attraction - that is, insects are drawn towards the bright
plant's light, which in turn attracts birds looking to feast on crispy
bugs.

However, it's important to note that unlike the California and Nevada
plants, earlier, smaller versions of these power towers tested in Europe
did not regularly see these kinds of incidents. And when the Crescent
Dunes plant ran a second test using less mirrors, no more birds burst
into flames.

Garry George, renewable-energy director for the California chapter of
the Audubon Society, even told the AP that while the reports are
"alarming... it's hard to say whether that's the location or the
technology" that's behind the deaths. It may simply be that more birds
follow air paths that happen to cross the new solar fields.

He added that like with any new technology, "there needs to be some
caution," and hopefully engineers can learn from these early mistakes.

US Fish and Wildlife Service officials are now waiting for a death toll
for a full year of operation at the Ivanpah plant. The subsequent report
may impact plans for future solar power towers in the United States.

A number of potential Republican presidential candidates descended on
the Iowa Ag Summit this past weekend to shore up their bona fides with
the state’s agricultural industry. Unfortunately, when it came to the
subject of ethanol and the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), most of the
White House hopefuls resorted to pandering to voters rather than
speaking truth about failed policy.

The hard-charging environmental lobby rallies around corn-based ethanol
as a fuel alternative because ecofascists have great faith that it’s
better for the environment (spoiler alert: it’s not). Farmers,
particularly those in Iowa, embrace the policy mandating ethanol as a
fuel additive because it raises demand for corn and puts more money in
their pockets.

The environmental and agricultural lobbies have been strong enough to
keep the RFS alive even after a number of scientists and economists have
disproven the effectiveness and benefits of ethanol.

Sure, ethanol combustion in automobiles does produce less CO2 than
fossil fuel combustion, which gives climate change fanatics warm
fuzzies. However, growing all the corn necessary to meet Washington’s
arbitrary mandate (and its subsequent effect on food prices), along with
the intensive production process of manufacturing ethanol, heavily
outweighs any benefits we experience through ethanol use. And that’s not
to mention the fuel’s destructiveness for engines, or that CO2 is not a
pollutant.

An Associated Press investigation into ethanol production revealed that,
in their rush to clear land to plant corn, farmers “wiped out millions
of acres of conservation land, destroyed habitat and polluted water
supplies.” Wetlands were devastated, and billions of pounds of
fertilizers contaminated rivers. Had manufacturers of any other product
taken these actions, the Obama White House would be calling for
investigations and fines. Instead, the administration plows ahead with
current policy.

And as Mark Alexander wrote last year, “More than 90% of our nation’s
corn crop went toward feeding people and livestock in the year 2000,
with less than 5% of the crop going toward ethanol. In 2013, however, a
whopping 40% went toward ethanol. To illustrate this grossly inefficient
use of our natural resources, the amount of grain required to fill a
25-gallon automotive fuel tank with ethanol is enough grain to feed one
person for an entire year.”

Nevertheless, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad played the role of Captain
Obvious when he stated that any candidate who publicly opposes the
ethanol mandate would probably not win the Iowa caucus next year. In
truth, it’s tough to stand in front of a crowd of potential supporters
and tell them you are against their favorite policy. But no one ever
said having the courage of your convictions was easy.

Almost all of the major GOP White House contenders failed the conviction test in Iowa.

Rick Perry said, “I don’t think you pull the RFS [Renewable Fuel
Standard] out and discriminate against the RFS and leave all these other
subsidies.” In other words, subsidies are good because subsidies exist.

Chris Christie and Lindsey Graham voiced full-throated support for the
RFS, and Mike Huckabee claimed ethanol was good for national security
policy by reducing dependence on foreign imports. Rick Santorum argued
ethanol “creates jobs in small-town and rural America, which is where
people are hurting.”

Even Scott Walker, who opposed ethanol in 2006, said that while he is
opposed to government intervention he will support the ethanol mandate.
“Right now we don’t have a free and open marketplace,” he asserted, so
why not keep the mandate going? He did add that eventually there will be
“no need to have a standard,” but his squishiness was palpable.

Jeb Bush was less objectionable, but also ducked making any substantive
statements. “The markets are ultimately going to have to decide this,”
he said, though he equivocated by refusing to set a firm deadline for
phasing out the RFS.

Only Ted Cruz managed to get it right. “I recognize that this is a
gathering of a lot of folks where the answer you’d like me to give is,
‘I’m for the RFS, darn it,’” he said. “But I’ll tell you, people are
pretty fed up, I think, with politicians who go around and tell one
group one thing, tell another group another thing, and then they go to
Washington and they don’t do anything that they said they would do.”

Cruz added, “I don’t think Washington should be picking winners and
losers. When it comes to energy, we should have an all-of-the-above
approach, but it should be driven by the market.” Exactly right.

The audience applauded Cruz’s candor for coming out against the RFS, but
no doubt many also made a mental note to scratch him off their short
list for 2016.

Republicans don’t seem to have a problem speaking out against
ObamaCare’s mandate that Americans buy health insurance. Why do they
then embrace the mandate that Americans buy ethanol?

The answer is simple: Iowa is always an important state for presidential
candidates as its caucus kicks off the primaries. But the ethanol
debacle illustrates why this privilege should no longer reside in the
Hawkeye State. GOP candidates should be standing by free market
principles instead of corporate welfare, but thanks to the primary
structure they’re forced to pander to Iowa farmers.

The folks at the Environmental Protection Agency, starting with a long
line of its administrators that now includes Gina McCarthy, think you
and the Congress of the United States are stupid. They have been telling
lies for so long they can’t imagine that their chokehold on the
American economy will ever end.

It is, however, coming to an end and the reason is a
Republican-controlled Congress responding to the countless businesses
and individuals being ravaged by a ruthless bureaucracy driven by an
environmental agenda determined to deprive America of the energy sources
vital to our lives and the nation’s existence.

This was on display in early March when Gina McCarthy testified to the
Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee, asking for a nearly
$500 million increase in its 2016 budget. The total discretionary budget
request would have topped out at $8.6 billion and would reward states
nearly $4 billion to go along with the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.

The problem is that the Clean Power Plan is really about no power or far
more costly power in those states where the EPA has been shutting down
coal-fired plants that not long ago provided fifty percent of all the
electricity in the nation.

In February 2014, the Institute for Energy Research reported:

“More than 72 gigawatts (GW) of electrical generating capacity have
already, or are now set to retire because of the Environmental
Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulations. The regulations causing these
closures include the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (colloquially
called MATS, or Utility MACT), proposed Cross State Air Pollution Rule
(CSAPR), and the proposed regulation of carbon dioxide emissions from
existing power plants.

To put 72 GW in perspective, that is enough electrical generation
capacity to reliably power 44.7 million homes—or every home in every
state west of the Mississippi River, excluding Texas. In other words,
EPA is shutting down enough generating capacity to power every home in
Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Montana,
Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas,
Oklahoma, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana.

Plants closed or soon to be

Over 94 percent these retirements will come from generating units at
coal-fired power plants, shuttering over one-fifth of the U.S.’s
coal-fired generating capacity. While some of the effected units will be
converted to use new fuels, American families and businesses will pay
the price with higher utility bills and less reliability for their
electricity.”

What nation would knowingly reduce its capacity to produce the electricity that everyone depends upon?

Answer: The United States of America.

Why? Because the EPA has been telling us that coal-fired plants produce
carbon dioxide (CO2) and it is causing ours and the world’s temperature
to increase to a point that threatens our lives. They have been claiming
that everything from blizzards to droughts, hurricanes to forest fires,
are the result of the CO2 that coal-fired plants produce.

That is a huge, stupendous lie.

In the Senate Committee meeting, McCarthy said, “Climate change is real.
It is happening. It is a threat. Humans are causing the majority of
that threat...the impacts are being felt. Climate change is not a
religion. It is not a belief system. It’s a scientific fact. And our
challenge is to move forward with the actions we need to protect future
generations.”

Climate change is real. It’s been real for 4.5 billion years and it has
absolutely nothing to do with anything that humans do, least of all
heating, cooling and lighting their homes, running their businesses, and
everything else that requires electricity.

McCarthy said that the EPA’s overall goal was to save the planet from
rising sea levels, massive storms, and other climate events that impact
our lives. No, that’s not why the EPA was created in 1970. Its job was
to clean the water and the air. It has done a relatively good job, but
its mandate had nothing to do with the climate, nor does the provision
of energy have any impact on the climate.

The reverse is true. The climate has a lot of impact on us.

Regarding the “science” McCarthy referred to, according to a 2013 report
by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, there were record low
tornadoes, record low hurricanes, record gain in Arctic and Antarctic
ice, no change in the rate of sea levels, and there had been NO WARMING
at that point for 17—now 19—years.

When Sen. Jeff Sessions asked McCarthy a number of questions about
droughts and hurricanes, she either dodged providing a specific answer
or claimed, as with hurricanes, that “I cannot answer that question.
It’s a very complicated issue.”

Asked about the computer models on which the EPA makes its regulatory
decisions, McCarthy replied, “I do not know what the models actually are
predicting that you are referring to.” Sen. Sessions said that it was
incredible that the Administrator of the EPA “doesn’t know whether their
predictions have been right or wrong.”

As for any “science” the EPA may be using, much of it is SECRET.

H. Sterling Burnett, the managing editor of the Heartland Institute’s
Environment & Climate News, reported on The Secret Science Reform
Act (HR 4012) introduced by the House Science Committee late last year.
The bill would “prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from
proposing, finalizing, or disseminating regulations or assessments based
on science that is not transparent or reproducible.”

The House passed the Act on November 20, 2014 and it has been received
in the Senate, read twice, and referred to the Committee on Environment
and Public Works. If it passes the Senate, that will be a giant leap
forward in gaining oversight and control of the EPA.

Until then, the EPA’s administrator and staff will continue to work
their mischief in the belief that both Congress and the rest of us are
stupid. We’re not.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

12 March, 2015

Climate change predictions have been wrong for decades

By Walter E. Williams

"But the debate is settled. Climate change is a fact," said President
Barack Obama in his 2014 State of the Union address. Saying the debate
is settled is nonsense, but the president is right about climate change.

GlobalChange.gov gives the definition of climate change: "Changes in
average weather conditions that persist over multiple decades or longer.
Climate change encompasses both increases and decreases in temperature,
as well as shifts in precipitation, changing risk of certain types of
severe weather events, and changes to other features of the climate
system."

That definition covers all weather phenomena throughout all 4.54 billion years of Earth's existence.

You say, "Williams, that's not what the warmers are talking about. It's
the high CO2 levels caused by mankind's industrial activities that are
causing the climate change!" There's a problem with that reasoning.

Today CO2 concentrations worldwide average about 380 parts per million.
This level of CO2 concentration is trivial compared with the
concentrations during earlier geologic periods. For example, 460 million
years ago, during the Ordovician Period, CO2 concentrations were 4,400
ppm, and temperatures then were about the same as they are today. With
such high levels of CO2, at least according to the warmers, the Earth
should have been boiling.

Then there are warmer predictions. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina,
warmers, such as the Union of Concerned Scientists, made all manner of
doomsday predictions about global warming and the increased frequency of
hurricanes. According to the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, "no
Category 3-5 hurricane has struck the United States for a record nine
years, and Earth's temperature has not budged for 18 years."

Climate change predictions have been wrong for decades. Let's look at
some. At the first Earth Day celebration, in 1969, environmentalist
Nigel Calder warned, "The threat of a new ice age must now stand
alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery
for mankind."

C.C. Wallen of the World Meteorological Organization said, "The cooling
since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not
soon be reversed." In 1968, Professor Paul Ehrlich predicted that there
would be a major food shortage in the U.S. and that "in the 1970s and
1980s hundreds of millions of people (would) starve to death."

Ehrlich forecasted that 65 million Americans would die of starvation
between 1980 and 1989 and that by 1999, the U.S. population would have
declined to 22.6 million. Ehrlich's predictions about England were
gloomier. He said, "If I were a gambler, I would take even money that
England will not exist in the year 2000."

In 1970, Harvard University biologist George Wald predicted,
"Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is
taken against problems facing mankind." Sen. Gaylord Nelson, in Look
magazine in April 1970, said that by 1995, "somewhere between 75 and 85
percent of all the species of living animals (would) be extinct."

Climate change propaganda is simply a ruse for a socialist agenda.
Consider the statements of some environmentalist leaders. Christiana
Figueres, the U.N.'s chief climate change official, said that her
unelected bureaucrats are undertaking "probably the most difficult task"
they have ever given themselves, "which is to intentionally transform
the (global) economic development model."

In 2010, German economist and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
official Ottmar Edenhofer said, "One must say clearly that we
redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy." The article
in which that interview appeared summarized Edenhofer's views this way:
"Climate policy has almost nothing to do anymore with environmental
protection. ... The next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an
economy summit during which the distribution of the world's resources
will be negotiated."

The most disgusting aspect of the climate change debate is the
statements by many that it's settled science. There is nothing more
anti-scientific than the idea that any science is settled. Very often we
find that the half-life of many scientific ideas is about 50 years. For
academics to not criticize their colleagues and politicians for
suggesting that scientific ideas are not subject to challenge is the
height of academic dishonesty.

Ineos has invested £168m in UK shale gas exploration through a deal with
IGas Energy that will see the companies drill up to 11 wells in the
North West and frack six of them.

The petrochemicals giant said it would pay an initial £30m for stakes of
50pc-60pc in seven exploration blocks in the Bowland basin in Cheshire
and north Wales, as well as an option of a stake in two East Midlands
blocks and buying IGas out of one block in Scotland.

Ineos has also committed to pay up to £138m to fund exploration in the
Bowland licences, where IGas has already drilled three wells.

The proposed work involves drilling six vertical wells, one of which
would be fracked, and five horizontal wells, all of which would be
fracked.

IGas shares rose almost 16pc on the news, which its chief executive
Andrew Austin said "underpins the quality, scale and significant
potential of our licences".

"Ineos’s commitment of upfront cash and considerable capital investment
will help fund us through the next steps of our shale appraisal and
production programme," he said.

IGas would have to repay its £65m share of costs if the sites ever began commercial shale gas production.

No fracking has taken place in the UK since a moratorium was lifted in
2012 while planning applications to do by rival Cuadrilla have made slow
progress.

Drilling under the IGas deal is unlikely to begin for several years, Ineos director Tom Crotty said.

The IGas deal is Ineos's first under plans unveiled last year by its
billionaire owner Jim Ratcliffe to invest up to £640m in UK shale gas
exploration.

Ineos said the deal would make it the third biggest shale gas player by
licence area - behind IGas and Cuadrilla - with access to a quarter of a
million acres of potential shale gas reserves.

Gary Haywood, head of Ineos's upstream division, said: "This is a great
opportunity to acquire some first class assets that have the potential
to yield significant quantities of gas in the future.

"Ineos’s scale, asset position across the UK, US shale gas expertise,
and our expertise in managing oil and gas facilities will be a great
match with IGas’s existing onshore asset base, and significant
exploration and production capability."

Ineos had previously bought stakes in two Scottish exploration blocks
near its Grangemouth refinery in the hope of sourcing ethane as a
feedstock, but faces an uphill battle after the Scottish Government
recently imposed a fresh moratorium on fracking.

Mr Crotty said it was happy with the Scottish government’s proposal for
public consultation but warned that a long-term ban would be “a major
problem for the Scottish economy”.

He denied that recent setbacks for Cuadrilla suggested the tide was
turning against shale. “The tide has always been a bit difficult,” he
said. “We have a lot of work to do to persuade people this isn’t a
Frankenstein monster.”

Mr Crotty said he would not be surprised if a Government announcement on
awarding new shale oil and gas exploration licences was delayed until
after the general election for political reasons – despite companies
having been told to expect the results early this year.

Gina McCarthy, head of the EPA, can't answer basic questions about
global temperatures, climate models or numbers of hurricanes. She didn't
know being a global warming zealot requires knowledge of math.

If the science of climate change was "settled," you'd think one of the
generals in the war on global warming would have memorized the numbers
that point to our planetary doom from a menace the administration says
is a greater threat than terrorism.

But McCarthy was asked some pretty simple questions Wednesday at a
Senate hearing Wednesday on her request for $8.6 billion to help fight
the claimed imminent doom of climate change, and her performance didn't
help her case.

One of the questions involved droughts and the claim that their
frequency has increased due to warming that is said to be caused by
mankind's increased production of greenhouse gas, such as carbon
dioxide, the basis for all life on Earth but judged by the EPA to be a
pollutant.

"Let me ask you this," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., inquired of
McCarthy. "There was an article from Mr. (Bjorn) Lomborg ... from the
Copenhagen Institute. He says, along with Dr. (Roger) Pielke from
Colorado, that we've had fewer droughts in recent years. Do you dispute
that?"

The seemingly clueless McCarthy pathetically responded that she didn't
"know in what context he's making statements like that." Context? Truth
has its own context, and the inconvenient truth that McCarthy wasn't
aware of, or didn't want to face, is that Pielke and Lomborg are right.

Pielke, a professor at the University of Colorado, told the Senate
environment and public works subcommittee in July 2013 that droughts
have "for the most part become shorter, less frequent and cover a
smaller portion of the U.S. over the last century." Globally, he said,
"there has been little change in drought over the last 60 years."

Sessions also asked McCarthy if we've had more or fewer hurricanes in
the last decade. It was another question she said she couldn't answer
because "it's a very complicated issue." Well, no, not unless basic math
is a complicated issue. Sessions noted that we have in fact gone nearly
a decade without a Category 3 storm or higher making landfall in the
U.S.

The last hurricane to hit America as a Category 3 or higher was Wilma,
which struck Florida on Oct. 24, 2005. Superstorm Sandy had wind speeds
barely reaching Category 1 status when it slammed into New Jersey in
2012 and wreaked havoc.

Any Wisconsinites starting to wonder whether they are living through
“The Long Winter,” as described by Laura Ingalls Wilder, will find no
comfort in President Obama’s plans to cut the use of our most affordable
and reliable sources of energy.

Though we may not be relegated to heating our homes by burning twisted
bundles of straw, the president’s plans to restrict use of our most
economical fuels will not only increase the costs of driving, heating
and lighting, they will reduce incomes and kill jobs. For Wisconsin, it
works out to 20,000 fewer manufacturing jobs by 2023.

How so? Natural gas, petroleum and coal provide nearly 80 percent of all
energy used in the United States. Despite large subsidy and mandate
driven growth rates, wind and solar satisfy only about 2.5 percent of
our energy needs and do so at higher cost and with intermittent supply.
And therein lies the problem. Eliminating conventional energy makes us
pay more and get less. There are no magic wands here.

When energy is more expensive, consumers spend more on it and less on
other things. And producers must pay those higher energy costs as well.
That raises the costs of lawn mowers, blenders and every other product
people may want at the same time those people (i.e., the aforementioned
consumers) have less to spend on those things. So, guess what? Fewer
lawn mowers and blenders will be sold; and it takes fewer employees to
make those lower quantities.

Researchers at The Heritage Foundation used a clone of the Department of
Energy’s big energy model and estimated the economic impact of the
Obama administration’s broadly stated carbon targets.

What we found is that, for Wisconsin, “fewer” means 20,000 lost
manufacturing jobs. And this is after accounting for any increases in
jobs manufacturing no-carbon or low-carbon substitutes and any gains
from increased energy efficiency that the higher energy prices induce.
That 20,000 figure is the net job loss.

There are those who say (however indirectly) that those 20,000 newly
unemployed workers need to take one for the team to prevent climate
catastrophe. There are a couple of Grand Canyon sized holes in this
argument.

First, the associated claims of increasingly extreme weather are not
borne out in the data kept by our own National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration nor even by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change’s data keepers. There just aren’t any upward trends in
hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts or floods. Nor is sea-level rise
accelerating.

Extreme weather events have been with us since there was us, and they
will almost certainly continue regardless of rules from Washington, D.C.

Second, cutting our emissions by even 60 percent (we are not on track
for that) would moderate world temperatures by less than a tenth of a
degree Celsius by the end of the century. Throw in a 60 percent cut from
the rest of the developed world and any increase is cut by less than
two-tenths of a degree. So to the 20,000 lost Wisconsin manufacturing
jobs add those from the other 49 states, Canada, Japan, all of Western
Europe, and the impact still would be an amount nobody could detect
without a very accurate thermometer.

If the lost jobs don’t buy us much on the global warming side, wouldn’t
we at least get cleaner air? Since CO2 is colorless, odorless and
nontoxic (and helpful to plant growth) we need to look at conventional
pollution.

The air has gotten cleaner even as energy production has risen
dramatically. According to the National Energy Technology Laboratory,
modern coal power technology cuts emissions of nitrous oxides by 86
percent, of sulfur dioxides by 98 percent, and of soot by 99.8 percent.

If you want to, go ahead and worry about your own carbon footprint, but
let’s not have Washington use its regulatory footprint to stomp out
20,000 manufacturing jobs in Wisconsin for no good reason.

Today, we learn from the New Republic, a delegation of six schoolkids is
visiting Washington DC with a view to educating Republican senators
including Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz about the
reality of global warming.

Let us pause awhile to relish the arrogance, stupidity and frankly
borderline child-abusive nature of this ludicrous stunt, cooked up by
the hard-left pressure group Avaaz.

One of the kids, Nadia Sheppard, 16 from North Carolina is quoted as
saying: “Scientists have noticed that this was a problem for a really
long time, like, maybe 20 years ago? Longer than I’ve been alive.”

Yeah, but, like, Nadia, what scientists have also, like, noticed is that
there has been no statistically significant warming since 1998, the
year before you were born. Does it not strike you as a bit suspicious
that the thing you’ve been told by your teachers constitutes the
greatest peril of our age – “global warming” – hasn’t actually happened
at any stage in your entire existence?

Not that I’m blaming poor Nadia or those other hapless kids who have
been dragooned into this stunt. Rather I blame Avaaz – and the broader
climate alarmism movement generally – for co-opting innocents like this
into their grubby propaganda wars.

Two points worth remembering about kids are a) their frontal lobes
haven’t formed so they’re impulsive and irrational and b) the quality of
their knowledge is dependent on the quality of their teaching, so if
they’ve been taught idiocy then they will spout idiocy.

Later in the article, we learn of a separate poll, commissioned by Avaaz
last year, which revealed that of more than a thousand US 12-year-olds
polled, 90 per cent responded that climate change is real and
“significantly” driven by human activity.

This devastating near-unanimity among America’s prepubescents on the
reality of climate change I personally find moving, powerful and hugely
persuasive.

I’m now just an opinion poll away from being forced to recognise the
error of my ways. So tell us, please, Avaaz because this is really
important and we’re dying to know:

Is America’s kitten population similarly convinced of the reality of
global warming? And if it is, mightn’t this have the makings of a
devastatingly effective media campaign with the potential to go viral
like you would not believe?

We have the glorious news today that if only everyone drove electric
cars then everyone driving an electric car would save loadsamoney. It
isn’t actually true though, electric cars won’t save drivers anything at
all, not one single red penny:

Electric cars could cut the UK’s oil imports by 40% and reduce drivers’
fuel bills by £13bn if deployed on a large scale, according to a new
study.

An electric vehicle surge would deliver an average £1,000 of fuel
savings a year per driver, and spark a 47% drop in carbon emissions by
2030, said the Cambridge Econometrics study.

The paper, commissioned by the European Climate Foundation, said that
air pollutants such as nitrogen oxide and particulates would be all but
eliminated by mid-century, with knock-on health benefits from reduced
respiratory diseases valued at over £1bn.

But enjoying the fruits of a clean vehicle boom will require an
infrastructure roll-out soon, as the analysis assumes a deployment of
over 6m electric vehicles by 2030 – growing to 23m by 2050 – powered by
ambitious amounts of renewable energy.

And who, might we ask, has to pay for that infrastructure? Ah, yes, of
course, that’s us, the general taxpayer, isn’t it? So, we’re asked to
dig into our pockets to make driving cheaper for other people. And given
that it’s not the poor who are going to be buying expensive electric
vehicles that’s us, the general taxpayer, subsidising the better off,
isn’t it? Not quite the way this is meant to work.

However, there’s another problem with this. Which is that electric cars
aren’t going to save drivers any money at all, not in the long term. For
petrol driven cars, if petrol were untaxed, are still very much cheaper
than electric cars. Sure, for environmental reasons that might mean
that a bit of subsidy to get the new technology rolling might be worth
it (not that we agree but we’re willing to accept the possibility at
least). And that tax on petrol does raise some £27 billion for the
Treasury, at least it did last time we looked.

Politicians are not simply going to acquiesce at having £27 billion less
of our money a year to play with and dispose of as they wish. Thus, as
electric cars become a larger portion of the fleet so taxation of
electic cars will rise in order to replace that revenue lost from taxing
petrol. That £27 billion is still going to be extracted from drivers
whatever else happens.

So given that the savings from electric vehicles are entirely tax
driven, and the tax system will not, as soon as the revenue loss becomes
noticeable, stay static then we cannot say that the widespread adoption
of electic cars will save drivers money.

In fact, given that the electric car untaxed is still more expensive
than the petrol car untaxed, yet the political imperative will be to
make sure that tax revenues do not fall, we will find out that electric
cars cost drivers more than petrol driven. Because, once electric cars
become popular, they will have to carry the costs of their inefficiency
and also that same tax burden.

This idea that drivers will, in the long term, save money by having
electric cars is thus a con. It simply won’t happen: not when
politicians so enjoy spending the money they raise through the taxation
of driving.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

11 March, 2015

The Warmists are worried

See the big attack on skeptics published in SciAm below. We
skeptics have got Warmists on the defense, a pathetic "ad hominem"
defense though it is. The intellectually respectable way to
conduct a debate is to present factual evidence on the issue and
reasoning based on that evidence. Note that today's offering on
this blog contains abstracts from two academic journal articles --
presentations of new facts. That is lightyears away from what
Warmists do. They attack persons and ignore the climate
facts. Following the article I reproduce some emailed comments
from Jim Lakely, Director of Communications at The Heartland
Institute -- JR

Evan Lehman

Before the release this Friday of the documentary "Merchants of Doubt,"
S. Fred Singer sought the advice of nearly 30 climate skeptics about
their chances of halting the movie and whether he should sue Naomi
Oreskes, who co-authored the book on which it's based.

"Has she finally gone too far?" asked Singer.

The discussion is outlined in a chain of emails initiated last fall by
the 90-year-old physicist, who is featured in the film for his work
questioning the amount of influence people have on rising temperatures.
His request reached a mix of academics and others who have been mostly
antagonistic toward mainstream climate findings. ClimateWire obtained
the emails from a source who received them as a forwarded message.

Perhaps the strongest response came from James Enstrom, an
epidemiologist who has challenged the science around the health risks of
secondhand smoke and particulate air pollution. Enstrom told Singer
that he could make "a very strong case" against Oreskes if Singer filed
complaints with the universities she's affiliated with.

"I suggest you Attack Oreskes by Filing short Grievances with Harvard
and Stanford," Enstrom wrote to Singer on Oct. 21. Oreskes is a
professor of scientific history at Harvard University with a doctorate
from Stanford University.

"Good thought," Singer responded.

The wider discussion is viewed by some as a window into the network of
skeptical scientists, bloggers and conservative think tank scholars who
often raise objections to mainstream climate science. The tactics
discussed -- like lawsuits and grievances -- reflect previous efforts to
constrain critics of Singer and others through legal attacks, or the
threat of them, several people involved with the movie say.

"This is part of their intimidation," Oreskes said in an interview.
"It's a part about trying to make people frightened that if they do
speak up and they do expose what's going on, they'll get attacked. And
they will get attacked. I've been attacked."

The documentary is based on her book, "Merchants of Doubt," published in
2010. In it, she outlined the similarities between the political fight
around climate change and the earlier debates about whether smoking was
dangerous. The effort to fight health problems from smoking was stalled
for years. She suggested that a small group of scientists cooperating
with think tanks and businesses managed to obscure basic truths about
the harms of both. The movie will be released nationally Friday. It's
directed by Robert "Robby" Kenner, the creator of the 2008 documentary
"Food Inc."

Singer, who cooperated with Kenner to film a scene for the movie, said
in an interview with ClimateWire that he has decided not to take legal
action against Oreskes or Kenner. It would be too expensive and would
require too much of his time, he said. He also ruled out filing
grievances against Oreskes with university administrators because
"they're just as bad as she is."

Still, Singer has sent mixed signals about his intentions. Last week, he
sent a letter to Kenner to raise the possibility of legal action.

"I would prefer to avoid having to go to court; but if we do, we are
confident that we will prevail," Singer said in the letter, which
suggests that the film treats him maliciously and adds, "it is rather
too bad that you got mixed up with Naomi Oreskes."

A 'liar for hire' or an honest skeptic?

The letter was posted on Climate Depot, a website critical of climate
science run by Marc Morano, who is featured in the film and was a
recipient of Singer's emails last fall.

"I think there's a pattern," Kenner said of Singer's letter in an
interview. "It's to come after and try to silence critics and to
intimidate. And when [Singer] implies litigation is very expensive, I
think it's an attempt to be intimidating."

On the other hand, it might be going too far to suggest that Singer's
goal is to stifle his critics if he feels he's been slandered, said
Andrew Hoffman, a professor at the University of Michigan who studies
the behavior of climate skeptics.

Singer says he believes the movie refers to him as a "liar for hire,"
though he hasn't seen it. That's false, he said, noting that he believes
genuinely that humans have little effect on climate change. He also
rejects the idea that he's being paid by fossil fuel companies, apart
from an unsolicited $10,000 donation from an Exxon foundation 12 years
ago to the Science & Environmental Policy Project, which he founded.

Singer acknowledged that he has "made a lot of money on oil," but it was
decades ago, from fees he charged to financial institutions, major
corporations like IBM and some oil companies to predict the price of
crude using a computer model he created, Singer said. The money wasn't
related to research around climate change, he said.

"I'm real sad about this attack, but it's not unexpected," Singer said of the "liar for hire" phrase.

But does the movie say that?

No, said Kenner, who provided a transcript of the scene with Singer to
ClimateWire. He and others say it appears to be a phrase created by a
media outlet that reviewed the film.

Besides, lying isn't a common tool of skeptical scientists, Oreskes
said. These contrarians are generally successful, and trusted by some,
in one field or another.

"This isn't about lying," Oreskes said. "This is something much more
terrible, in a way. Much more devious. A kind of what we call
doubtmongering."

"I never said that anyone was lying, and I never would say that," she
added. "But this is part of the strategy, too. These people put words in
other people's mouths, and then they act all outraged about it, and
they spread the claim that you said something that you never said. And
then they threaten to sue you for it."

Singer supporters slam 'Merchants of Smear'

Oreskes has an example in mind.

Singer filed a libel suit in the early 1990s against Justin Lancaster, a
climate researcher at the University of California, San Diego, who
claimed that Singer had taken advantage of his mentor and colleague,
Roger Revelle, a noted climate scientist, in the months before Revelle's
death.

Singer approached Revelle a month before his triple bypass heart surgery
to cooperate on a journal article that downplayed the urgency of
addressing climate change. It marked a reversal for Revelle, who
supported policies to reduce greenhouse gases and was a mentor to former
Vice President Al Gore. The paper roiled the climate debate as Gore's
opponents highlighted it to raise questions about the certainty of
warming.

But Revelle missed the debate. He died in July 1991 and was unable to
shed light on Lancaster's assertions that Singer had pressured Revelle
into co-authoring the paper in his weakened state after surgery. So
Lancaster accused Singer of acting unethically, and Singer sued.
Lancaster eventually settled the suit and entered a yearslong gag
period.

He would later say the settlement was one of his biggest regrets. And he
accused Singer, in even stronger terms, of pressuring Revelle to
cooperate.

"It was one of the worst things I ever did, was to give him a
retraction," Lancaster said in an interview. "I did it to try to save my
marriage."

Singer frequently points to his success with that case. He raised it in his letter to Kenner and in his emails last fall.

"The lawsuit was not filed to intimidate," Singer said in the interview.
"It was filed because what Lancaster suggested was that I faked the
participation of Roger Revelle as a co-author. That's completely untrue.
We have a complete retraction and an apology."

In his October emails, Singer reaches out to some of the most
recognizable opponents of mainstream climate science and policies,
including Willie Soon, Patrick Michaels, Anthony Watts, Steven Milloy,
Joe Bastardi and Joe Bast.

An English climate change denier, Christopher Monckton, viscount of
Brenchley, responded to Singer's request for advice by saying he would
"draft the complaint" for a lawsuit, but Singer never followed up.

"In every way, they have bent the science," Monckton said of mainstream
scientists and the filmmakers. "And having bent the science and not
convinced anybody, not even themselves really, they're not simply
resorting to the fallback position which Hitler and Goebbels on the left
did, which Mao Tse-tung and Pol Pot did, and of course ... Stalin and
Lenin did, and that is smear."

"So this film should really be called 'Merchants of Smear,'" he added.

The pre-release controversy around the movie provides more than just a
glimpse into the stormy messaging strategies on climate change. It also
promotes the film. But does it help convey the facts?

Hoffman, of the University of Michigan, says tit-for-tats between
mainstream and contrarian researchers tend to raise the profile of
skeptical scientists, despite their relatively small number. He pointed
to the recent inquiries undertaken by Democratic members of Congress,
who want the identity of donors who help fund skeptical academics, as an
advantage for those who challenge climate science.

Below are some emailed comments on the article above from Jim Lakely, Director of Communications, The Heartland Institute

This entire article is projection. It's like Bizarro world. Everything
is opposite of the truth and actually applicable to the warmists, not
skeptics.

It is obvious that Evan Lehman somehow got a very meaty email thread
some months ago, and was waiting until the debut of the “Merchants of
Doubt” movie to spring it on the world. We should be prepared for this
not being the end of “revelations” from our frank and private email
exchanges.

And this is for Evan, whom I can only assume will get word of this
email: Your headline, subhead, and lead says skeptics are going to fight
back by filing lawsuits against Oreskes and the makers of the
"Merchants of Doubt" movie. But you wait until Paragraph 10 to reveal
the truth: No lawsuits are forthcoming. Nice work. Your MSM credentials
are intact.

Aside from that, Evan, you've missed three real scoops:

(1) There is a publicly funded “professor at the University of Michigan
who studies the behavior of climate skeptics”? Why doesn't the public
know more about this taxpayer-funded professor who wastes so much time
studying the “3 percent” of skeptics — especially if the the other “97
percent” consensus has already won the public debate and the “science is
settled”? Might want to ask that of Andrew Hoffman, and then do a
series of stories about why the “minority” argument is so compelling
that a taxpayer-funded professor examines it so closely.

(2) You have Oreskes on the record denying that the entire thesis of her
book — and of this movie — is that climate “skeptics” are paid by
fossil fuel companies to lie about what is happening to the earth's
climate. If so, she needs to put in a call to the marketers of her book,
this movie, and everyone she has ever spoken to in the media to run
corrections. The entire media push for her book and this movie — and the
coordinated attack on Dr. Soon, Dr. Pielke, Dr. Curry, Morano,
Heartland, etc. — is that we are all “paid liars.” The truth is that all
the money flows to the other side, and the skeptics are the honest
ones.

(3) Hoffman claims that, “frankly, this degradation benefits the
skeptics.” Why would that be. Evan? Could it be that some alarmist
scientists — who believe in their models as faithfully as a Christian
believes in prayer — are having second thoughts about starting a Climate
Inquisition? Could it be that the science is on the side of the of the
“skeptics,” whom Oreskes and the filmmakers are calling liars, i.e.
heretics? Could it be that the overreach of leftist priests in Congress —
Grijalva, Markey, Boxer, Whitehouse, et. al. — has alerted the public
to the fact that the heretics might be on to something, and their
presentation of the actual data deserves an honest shake in the
mainstream media?

Again, this for Evan: Scoops #1, #2, and #3 deserve your attention. You
might lose some esteem among your fellow “mainstream” climate reporters
for exploring them, but that should be made up in spades by the warm
feeling of journalistic integrity that comes to any honest reporter.

Senator on Climate Change: ‘Put an International Price on Carbon’

LOL! The chances of getting even a national price seem nil, let
alone an international price. Australia once had a Left-enacted
carbon price but the effects were so unpopular that it brought down the
government concerned and was abolished by the incoming conservative
government

Democratic Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse called for an
international price on carbon as a way to combat climate change, which
he said is the most important issue in need of bipartisan support in
Congress.

“The thing that’s going to hit us in the long run is going to be climate
change and right now it’s an issue that Republicans just haven’t been
able to deal with at all. And I hope that as the public moves and as the
evidence builds up that they will find a way to free themselves to deal
with it because we badly, badly need to take action. The world is
looking to us and the consequences if we get it wrong will not be good
for a nation that leads by the power of its example,” said Whitehouse
after being recognized at the Friends of National Service Awards
reception held by Voices for National Service.

President Obama pledged $3 billion in aid for an international fund to help developing countries fight climate change.

Whitehouse, a member of the Senate Budget Committee, said the U.S. must do more to get other nations to act.

“I think that the best solution and the most economically effective
solution is to put an international price on carbon so that the markets
can work correctly and there’s not this huge built-in subsidy to the
polluting fuels. Getting there is going to require U.S. leadership and I
hope a general agreement can be reached this winter in Paris,” he said.

Whitehouse was asked if a price on carbon could hurt the economy in any way.

“Well, if the money were just mailed away to Mars, yeah, that would
probably hurt the economy. But if you put the money straight back into
the economy through lower tax rates particularly, then the economy has
the same amount of money and I think what you would find is the tax
reductions spurred activity and the money that went back to regular
workers was spent in the economy more quickly than extra returns to
these big multinational corporations,” he responded.

“So, I would think that a proper, what they call revenue-neutral carbon
fee, would actually kick up economic activity and be a net plus and
there’s a fair amount of, even very conservative economic analysis, to
support that view.”

New paper finds large calculation errors of solar radiation at the top of the atmosphere in climate models

A new paper published in Geophysical Research Letters finds
astonishingly large errors in the most widely used 'state of the art'
climate models due to incorrect calculation of solar radiation and the
solar zenith angle at the top of the atmosphere.

According to the authors:

"Annual incident solar radiation at the top of atmosphere (TOA) should
be independent of longitudes. However, in many Coupled Model
Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) models, we find that the
incident radiation exhibited zonal oscillations, with up to 30 W/m2 of
spurious variations. This feature can affect the interpretation of
regional climate and diurnal variation of CMIP5 results."

The alleged radiative forcing from all man-made CO2 generated since 1750
is claimed by the IPCC to be 1.68 W/m2. By way of comparison, the up to
30 W/m2 of "spurious variations" from incorrect calculation of solar
zenith angle discovered by the authors is up to 18 times larger than the
total alleged CO2 forcing since 1750.

Why wasn't this astonishing, large error of basic astrophysical
calculations caught billions of dollars ago, and how much has this error
affected the results of all modeling studies in the past?

The paper adds to hundreds of others demonstrating major errors of basic
physics inherent in the so-called 'state of the art' climate models,
including violations of the second law of thermodynamics. In addition,
even if the "parameterizations" (a fancy word for fudge factors) in the
models were correct (and they are not), the grid size resolution of the
models would have to be 1mm or less to properly simulate turbulent
interactions and climate (the IPCC uses grid sizes of 50-100 kilometers,
6 orders of magnitude larger). As Dr. Chris Essex points out, a
supercomputer would require longer than the age of the universe to run a
single 10 year climate simulation at the required 1mm grid scale
necessary to properly model the physics of climate.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

On the Incident Solar Radiation in CMIP5 Models

Linjiong Zhou et al.

Abstract

Annual incident solar radiation at the top of atmosphere (TOA) should be
independent of longitudes. However, in many Coupled Model
Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) models, we find that the
incident radiation exhibited zonal oscillations, with up to 30 W/m2 of
spurious variations. This feature can affect the interpretation of
regional climate and diurnal variation of CMIP5 results. This
oscillation is also found in the Community Earth System Model (CESM). We
show that this feature is caused by temporal sampling errors in the
calculation of the solar zenith angle. The sampling error can cause
zonal oscillations of surface clear-sky net shortwave radiation of about
3 W/m2 when an hourly radiation time step is used, and 24 W/m2 when a
3-hour radiation time step is used.

Wind turbines produce sound that is capable of disturbing local
residents and is reported to cause annoyance, sleep disturbance, and
other health-related impacts. An acoustical study was conducted to
investigate the presence of infrasonic and low-frequency noise emissions
from wind turbines located in Falmouth, Massachusetts, USA. During the
study, the investigating acousticians experienced adverse health effects
consistent with those reported by some Falmouth residents. The authors
conclude that wind turbine acoustic energy was found to be greater than
or uniquely distinguishable from the ambient background levels and
capable of exceeding human detection thresholds. The authors emphasize
the need for epidemiological and laboratory research by health
professionals and acousticians concerned with public health and
well-being to develop effective and precautionary setback distances for
industrial wind turbines that protect residents from wind turbine sound.

When a former “senior communications official at the White House” writes
a blog post for U.S. News and World Report, you should be able to trust
it. But when the author states that the Keystone pipeline would create
only 19 weeks of temporary jobs, everything else he says must be
suspect—including the claim that our “energy infrastructure will be 100
percent solar by 2030.”

Both a union representative and one from TransCanada—the company behind
the Keystone pipeline—affirmed that the 19-week timeframe was total
fantasy. The portion of the Keystone pipeline that remains to be built
is 1179 miles long. Construction should take two years.

The premise of the blog post is that we shouldn’t look at Keystone as a
jobs creator. Instead, the author claims, the jobs are in “solar energy
disruption.” He is frustrated that “GOP leaders almost universally
ignore or disdain this emerging energy economy.”

He states: “A third of all new electric generation in 2014 came from solar.”

This may be true but, as you’ll see, it belies several important
details. Plenty of cause exists for Republican lawmakers to “disdain”
the growth in renewable energy.

First, efficient and effective coal-fueled electricity that has provided
the bulk of America’s power is being prematurely shut down by
regulations promulgated by the Obama administration. It is virtually
impossible to get a new coal-fueled power plant permitted in the U.S.
Even natural gas-powered plants meet with resistance. And, of course,
just try to build a nuclear power plant and all the fear-mongers come
out.

What’s left? Renewables, such as wind and solar, receive favorable treatment through a combination of mandates and subsidies.

The brand new report, Solar Power in the U.S. (SPUS), presents a
comprehensive look at the impacts of solar power on the nation’s
consumers.

We’ve seen companies, such as Solyndra, Abound Solar, and Evergreen
Solar, go bankrupt even with millions of dollars in state and federal
(taxpayer) assistance. I’ve written extensively on these stories and
that of Abengoa—which received the largest federal loan guarantee ($2.8
billion) and has resorted to questionable business practices to keep the
doors open.

SPUS shows that without the subsidies and mandates these renewable
projects would do dark. For example, in Australia, sales of solar
systems “fell as soon as the incentives were cut back.” Since the
Australian government announced that it was reconsidering its Renewable
Energy Targets, “investments have started to dry up.”

Knowing the importance of the “incentives,” the solar industry has now
become a major campaign donor, providing political pressure and money to
candidates, who will bring on more mandates, subsidies, and tax
credits. Those candidates are generally Democrats, as one of the key
differences between the two parties is that Democrats tend to support
government involvement. By contrast, Republicans lean toward limited
government and the free market. The GOP doesn’t “disdain” solar, but
they know it only survives because of government mandates that require a
certain percentage of renewables, and specifically solar, in the energy
mix, plus the subsidies and tax credits that make it attractive.
Therefore, they can’t get excited about the jobs being created as a
result of taxpayers’ involuntary investment, nor higher energy costs.
There is a big difference between disdaining solar power and disdaining
the government involvement that gives it an unfair advantage in the
marketplace.

The blog post compares the “solar energy disruption” to what “occurred
when direcTV and Dish started to compete with cable television. More
choices emerged and a whole lot of new jobs were created.” However,
those jobs were created through private investment and the free market—a
fact that, along with solar’s dependence on incentives, he never
mentions.

SPUS draws upon the example of Germany, which has led the way globally
in renewables. Over time the campaign has contributed to residential
electricity prices more than doubling. Renewables receive favored
status, called “priority dispatch,” which means that, when renewable
electricity becomes available, the utilities must dispatch it first,
thereby changing the merit order for thermal plants. Now, many modern
power plants couldn’t operate profitably and, as a result, some were
shut down, while others were provided “capacity payments” in order to
stay online as back-up—maintaining system stability. In Germany’s push
for 80 percent renewable energy by 2050, it has found that despite the
high penetration of renewables, given their inherent intermittency, a
large amount of redundancy of coal- and natural-gas-fueled electricity
(nuclear being decommissioned) is necessary to maintain the reliability
of the grid.

As the German experience makes clear, without a major technological
breakthrough to store electricity generated through solar systems, “100
percent solar by 2030” is just one more fantasy.

The blog post ends with this: “the GOP congressional leadership ignores
these new jobs … in favor of a vanishingly small number of mythical
Keystone ‘jobs’ that may never materialize. It makes you wonder. Why?”

The answers can be found in SPUS, which addresses the policy,
regulatory, and consumer protection issues that have manifested
themselves through the rapid rise of solar power and deals with many
more elements than covered here. It concludes: “Solar is an important
part of our energy future, but there must be forethought, taking into
account future costs, jobs, energy reliability and the overall energy
infrastructure already in place. This technology must come online with
the needs of the taxpayer, consumer and ratepayer in mind instead of
giving the solar industry priority.”

While much of the debate over climate change surrounds whether or not it
is occurring, one glaciologist and retired professor says the real
issue is that the topic is being used as a political pawn to siphon
money and votes.

Dr. Terry Hughes, in an interview with The College Fix, said researchers
want to keep federal funding for climate change alive, and politicians
want to earn environmentalist votes, and both predict global pandemonium
to that end.

Hughes, a professor emeritus of earth sciences and climate change at the
University of Maine, said for years his colleagues urged him to be in
lockstep with former Vice President Al Gore – “the drum major in the
parade denouncing global warming as an unmitigated disaster,” he told
The College Fix.

But Hughes – who believes global warming is actually a good thing
because more carbon dioxide is good for the environment in many ways –
said he does not want to march to that beat.

“Too many (the majority) of climate research scientists are quite
willing to prostitute their science by giving these politicians what
they want,” he said.

Hughes – who worked for 35 years at the Department of Earth Sciences and
the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine – said climate
cycles overlap with election cycles, which helps politicians “get
electoral visibility by pounding the panic drums.”

But what he wants people to understand is that climate change
researchers and politicians collude to create fear of a disaster that
will never happen.

“You will never read or hear any of this from the scientific and
political establishments,” he said. “I’m now retired, so I have no
scientific career to protect by spreading lies.”

Among Hughes’ theories, he said he believes the desire to continue the
climate change arguments has a “racist” component to it. His evidence? A
1974 National Security Study Memorandum written by former Secretary of
State Henry Kissinger.

“NSSM 200 states that American economic supremacy can be maintained only
if U.S. foreign policy is aimed at reducing the non-white population
worldwide,” he said. “We need their natural resources to maintain our
standard of living.”

Hughes said the U.S. has carried out that policy successfully by
supporting the one-child policy in China, and also accuses the
government of “targeting aborting baby girls using ultrasound technology
that is rampant in both China and India, the two countries producing
the most atmospheric carbon dioxide by far.”

Hughes, who is now retired, does not fear backlash.

Hughes told The College Fix that he has sent copies of his arguments to
his former colleagues at the University of Maine and at NASA. Most of
them “probably disagree,” he said, but added that they all receive
funding for climate research.

According to a retirement announcement from the University of Maine’s
human resources department, “Dr. Hughes is an internationally renowned
glaciologist who pioneered many of the modern ideas currently under
study in the field. Not least of these is the current understanding of
how massive ice sheets collapse and how important future collapse of
portions of the Antarctic ice sheet will be to future sea level rise – a
concept now commonly referred to as ‘the soft weak underbelly’ of
Antarctica.”

Ironically, the notice goes on to state that “many of his most
‘outlandish’ scientific contributions may not even be appreciated for
years to come.”

His reasons for why global warming is a good thing, Hughes told the
Capital Journal, is that “atmospheric CO2 would greatly increase
agricultural production,” “thawing permafrost would increase by
one-seventh Earth’s landmass open to extensive human habitation,” and
“if the sea level did rise, there would be a global economic boom,”
among other arguments.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

10 March, 2015

German Physical Chemistry Scientist On Proof Of CO2 Forcing: “Measurements Show Exact Opposite”

A recent publication in Nature purported it had finally detected the radiative forcing of increasing atmospheric CO2.

German
physical chemist Dr. Siegfried Dittrich slams the media’s assertions of
proof that CO2 was guilty of the warming, claiming they are faulty and
that they were passed on uncritically

Once again a big war-dance
is made out of a minute temperature change of only 3 hundredths of one
degree Celsius, a change that is well within natural variation.
See here for a previous mention of the matter on this blog

‘The real guilt by CO2 for the greenhouse gas effect is finally proven.’
This was the subheading of a DPA release appearing at FOCUS Online on
27 February.

Later in the text it is written: ‘For the first time we are seeing the
enhancement of the greenhouse effect in nature’, and at the
Hamburg-based Max Planck Institute for Meteorology it was gleefully
added that finally also the magnitude of the anthropogenic impact has
become visible.

It all goes back to the latest surface radiation measurements recently
published in an essay in Nature (details here and here). However no one
seems to have noticed that the measurements actually showed the exact
opposite of what is claimed to have been proven above, namely nothing
other than what serious climate critics have always been saying about
anthropogenic greenhouse effect.

The number for the increase in CO2-dependent back radiation given by
Nature of 0.2 watt/m2 per decade is indeed in reality nothing more than
trifle. Why would the earth be shocked when 1367 watts per square meter
strikes the surface at noon along the equator? The ever-changing
deviations from this so-called solar constant mean value are in fact
considerably greater than the above given 0.2 watts/m2.

According to the IPCC, the surface radiative forcing increase in the
event of a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration is exactly 3.7
Watt/m2, a figure that has been independently confirmed on multiple
occasions. Over the last decade the atmospheric CO2 concentration
increased some 20 parts per million. Currently it stands at about 400
ppm. Here any undergraduate student is able to compute that the
resulting surface radiative forcing increase is approximately 0.2
watt/m2, which has been confirmed by the above mentioned measurements.

Also the resulting global temperature increase can be computed using one
of the IPCC equations, which also can be derived from the
Stefan-Boltzmann radiation law.

In Nature it is expressly remarked that the measured difference in
surface radiative forcing of 0.2 watt/m2 is solely for cloud-free zones
on earth. With an average 40% cloud cover and a 30% overlap between the
present water vapor and CO2 absorption spectrum, the above calculated
temperature value gets reduced from 0.06°C to 0.03°C. Here in reality we
are talking about an effect that is barely measureable, and one that
has no dramatic impact when combined with the fictional water vapor
amplification, which incidentally the superfluous ‘Energiewende’ is
based on ad absurdum. It is more than regrettable that FOCUS
uncritically passed on these misinterpretations. A correction should be
made immediately.

In an interview the HBO series “Vice” released Friday in advance of the
premiere of its third season, Biden said it’s increasingly difficult for
climate skeptics to intelligently argue their case.

“I think it’s close to mindless. I think it’s like, you know, almost
like denying gravity now,” Biden told host Shane Smith when he asked
about Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works
Committee and a high-profile skeptic who called climate change “the
greatest hoax” perpetrated on mankind.
“The willing suspension of disbelief can only be sustained so long,” he
continued. “The expression my dad used to always use is ‘reality has a
way of intruding.’”

Nearly all congressional Republicans agree with Inhofe that greenhouse
gases caused by human activity has little or no effect on the climate.

But Inhofe has deliberately been very vocal about the issue. Last month,
for example, he threw a snowball on the Senate floor, arguing that the
“very unseasonable” cold weather serves is evidence against the
scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming.

Biden said 2012’s Superstorm Sandy, and its impact in New York, helps make the case for human-caused climate change.

“All of the sudden, people who were saying it couldn’t happen, they’re
now knowing, they have to plan for another one of these storms, and
another, and another, and another,” he said.

He also pointed to make financial institutions like Goldman Sachs who are accounting for climate change in their finances.

“When the financial institutions of America began to price in the cost
of carbon for the cost of doing business, you know it’s reality.

A new documentary shows how a "professional class of deceivers" has been
paid by the fossil fuel industry to cast doubt on the science of
climate change, in an effort akin to that from the tobacco industry,
which for decades used deceitful tactics to deny the scientific evidence
that cigarettes are harmful to human health. The film, Merchants of
Doubt, explores how many of the same people that once lobbied on behalf
of the tobacco industry are now employed in the climate denial game.

An infamous 1969 memo from a tobacco executive read: "Doubt is our
product since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact'
that exists in the minds of the general public. It is also the means of
establishing a controversy." Using similar tactics, a very small set of
people have had immense influence in sowing doubt on the scientific
consensus of manmade climate change in recent years.

Merchants of Doubt features five prominent climate science deniers who
have been particularly influential in deceiving the public and blocking
climate action. Their financial connections to the fossil fuel industry
are not hard to uncover. Yet major U.S. television networks -- CNN,
MSNBC, Fox News, ABC, CBS, and PBS -- have given most of these deniers
prominent exposure over the past several years.

Now that these Merchants of Doubt have been exposed, the major cable and
network news programs need to keep them off the airwaves, a sentiment
echoed by Forecast the Facts, which recently launched a petition
demanding that news directors do just that.

The letters allege that the targeted researchers may have “conflicts of
interest” or may not have fully disclosed corporate funding sources.
They say such researchers may have testified before congressional
committees, written articles or spoken at conferences, emphasizing the
role of natural forces in climate change, or questioning evidence and
computer models that emphasize predominantly human causes.

Mr. Grijalva asserts that disclosure of certain information will
“establish the impartiality of climate research and policy
recommendations” published in the institutions’ names and help Congress
make better laws. “Companies with a direct financial interest in climate
and air quality standards are funding environmental research that
influences state and federal regulations and shapes public understanding
of climate science.” These conflicts need to be made clear, because
members of Congress cannot perform their duties if research or testimony
is “influenced by undisclosed financial relationships,” it says.

The targeted institutions are asked to reveal their policies on
financial disclosure; drafts of testimony before Congress or agencies;
communications regarding testimony preparation; and sources of “external
funding,” including consulting and speaking fees, research grants,
honoraria, travel expenses and other monies – for any work that
questions the manmade climate cataclysm catechism.

Conflicts of interest can indeed pose problems. However, it is clearly
not only fossil fuel companies that have major financial or other
interests in climate and air quality standards – nor only manmade
climate change skeptics who can have conflicts and personal, financial
or institutional interests in these issues.

Renewable energy companies want to perpetuate the mandates, subsidies
and climate disruption claims that keep them solvent. Insurance
companies want to justify higher rates, to cover costs from allegedly
rising seas and more frequent or intense storms. Government agencies
seek bigger budgets, more personnel, more power and control, more money
for grants to researchers and activist groups that promote their agendas
and regulations, and limited oversight, transparency and accountability
for their actions. Researchers and organizations funded by these
entities naturally want the financing to continue.

You would therefore expect that these members of Congress would send
similar letters to researchers and institutions on the other side of
this contentious climate controversy. But they did not, even though
climate alarmism is embroiled in serious financial, scientific, ethical
and conflict of interest disputes.

As Dr. Richard Lindzen, MIT atmospheric sciences professor emeritus and
one of Grijalva’s targets, has pointed out: “Billions of dollars have
been poured into studies supporting climate alarm, and trillions of
dollars have been involved in overthrowing the energy economy” – and
replacing it with expensive, inefficient, insufficient, job-killing,
environmentally harmful wind, solar and biofuel sources.

Their 1090 forms reveal that, during the 2010-2012 period, six
environmentalist groups received a whopping $332 million from six
federal agencies! That is 270 times what Dr. Willie Soon and
Harvard-Smithsonian’s Center for Astrophysics received from fossil fuel
companies in a decade – the funding that supposedly triggered the
lawmakers’ letters, mere days after Greenpeace launched its attack on
Dr. Soon.

The EPA, Fish & Wildlife Service, NOAA, USAID, Army and State
Department transferred this taxpayer money to Environmental Defense,
Friends of the Earth, Nature Conservancy, Natural Resource Defense
Council, National Wildlife Fund and Clean Air Council, for research,
reports, press releases and other activities that support and promote
federal programs and agendas on air quality, climate change, climate
impacts on wildlife, and many similar topics related to the Obama war on
fossil fuels. The activists also testified before Congress and lobbied
intensively behind the scenes on these issues.

Between 2000 and 2013, EPA also paid the American Lung Association well
over $20 million, and lavished over $180 million on its Clean Air
Scientific Advisory Committee members, to support agency positions.
Chesapeake energy gave the Sierra Club $26 million to advance its Beyond
Coal campaign. Russia gave generously to anti-fracking, climate change
and related “green” efforts.

Government agencies and laboratories, universities and other
organizations have received billions of taxpayer dollars, to develop
computer models, data and reports confirming alarmist claims. Abundant
corporate money has also flowed to researchers who promote climate
alarms and keep any doubts to themselves. Hundreds of billions went to
renewable energy companies, many of which went bankrupt. Wind and solar
companies have been exempted from endangered species laws, to protect
them against legal actions for destroying wildlife habitats, birds and
bats. Full disclosure? Rarely, if ever.

In gratitude and to keep the money train on track, many of these
recipients contribute hefty sums to congressional candidates. During his
recent primary and general campaign, for example, Senator Markey
received $3.8 million from Harvard and MIT professors, government
unions, Tom Steyer and a dozen environmentalist groups (including
recipients of some of that $332 million in taxpayer funds), in direct
support and via advertisements opposing candidates running against the
champion of disclosure.

As to the ethics of climate disaster researchers, and the credibility of
their models, data and reports, ClimateGate emails reveal that
researchers used various “tricks” to mix datasets and “hide the decline”
in average global temperatures since 1998; colluded to keep skeptical
scientific papers out of peer-reviewed journals; deleted potentially
damaging or incriminating emails; and engaged in other practices
designed to advance manmade climate change alarms. The Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change based many of its most notorious disappearing
ice cap, glacier and rainforest claims on student papers, magazine
articles, emails and other materials that received no peer review. The
IPCC routinely tells its scientists to revise their original studies to
reflect Summaries for Policymakers written by politicians and
bureaucrats.

Yet, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy relies almost entirely on this junk
science to justify her agency’s policies – and repeats EPA models and
hype on extreme weather, refusing to acknowledge that not one Category
3-5 hurricane has made U.S. landfall for a record 9.3 years. Her former
EPA air quality and climate czar John Beale is in prison for fraud, and
the agency has conducted numerous illegal air pollution experiments on
adults and even children – and then ignored their results in
promulgating regulations.

Long-time IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri has resigned in disgrace,
after saying manmade climate change is “my religion, my dharma”
(principle of the cosmic order), rather than a matter for honest,
quality science and open, robust debate. The scandals go on and on: see
here, here, here, here and here.

It’s no wonder support for job and economy-killing carbon taxes and
regulations is at rock bottom. And not one bit surprising that alarmists
refuse to debate realist scientists: the “skeptics” would eviscerate
their computer models, ridiculous climate disaster claims, and
“adjusted” or fabricated evidence.

Instead, alarmists defame scientists who question their mantra of
“dangerous manmade climate change.” The Markey and Grijalva letters
“convey an unstated but perfectly clear threat: Research disputing alarm
over the climate should cease, lest universities that employ such
individuals incur massive inconvenience and expense – and scientists
holding such views should not offer testimony to Congress,” Professor
Lindzen writes. They are “a warning to any other researcher who may dare
question in the slightest their fervently held orthodoxy of
anthropogenic global warming,” says Dr. Soon. Be silent, or perish.

Now the White House is going after Members of Congress! Its new
Climate-Change-Deniers website wants citizens to contact and harass
senators and congressmen who dare to question its climate diktats.

Somehow, though, Markey, Grijalva, et al. have not evinced any interest
in investigating any of this. The tactics are as despicable and
destructive as the junk science and anti-energy policies of climate
alarmism. It is time to reform the IPCC and EPA, and curtail this
climate crisis insanity.

Via email

The coming of global cooling

by Theodore White, astrometeorologist

As the Sun nears to begin its Grand Minimum, I have been warning and
forecasting for years the coming of global cooling - a true danger to
the Earth and its inhabitants.

This, as the madness of those who claim such an impossible thing as
'man-made global warming' go on and on in their arrogance as they
perpetuate the impossible as if it is a given with their silly
statements that the 'science is settled.'

Total horse manure. What will happen is this:

After the warm years of 2015 and 2016 pass with the final two years of
solar-forced global warming, the pundits will act as if the trace gas
known as carbon dioxide will cause the Earth to forever 'warm' and the
oceans to rise with all their gloom and doom on the Earth 'becoming a
greenhouse' - which is literally impossible due to the laws of physics
that govern the Earth climate.

It is the Sun that is the cause of global warming, global cooling and everything else in between.

The planets modulate the Sun's many rays, and all the indications -
every single last one of them that I have calculated - point to one
thing and that is global cooling.

It is coming for certain and I have been warning those who will listen to the truth of the entire matter of climate change.

As global cooling officially arrives in mid-December 2017, the years
going into the early 2020s will see a major ENSO of the cold phase,
called La Nina,' which I have forecasted will arrive in the winter of
2021-2022, and which will be a MAJOR event in the northern hemisphere.
It will be preceded by a brutal winter season in the southern hemisphere
as well.

The climate change will be abrupt, as it gets colder far faster than it
can warm, and as we go into the year 2020 the pundits will be at a total
loss to explain how the cooler seasons and colder temperatures are
happening so quickly.

Remember that those pundits, those who have gone on and on for years
blaming humanity for 'global warming,' will not be there to help you
during the three decade long plus era of global cooling.

Already the Antarctic is gearing up for global cooling, and in the
Arctic, since 2010, the jet streams have begun their shift from a
east/west flow to one that is becoming increasingly north to south.

That is the reason for the polar vortices that are going to become ever
more frequent and common as fierce cold temperatures plunges down into
the mid-latitudes and further south.

By the end of the first La Nina of the global cooling era, there will be
far fewer loud mouths going on and on about how humans are 'warming'
the planet as many people will pray for warmer temperatures, but that
warmth will not arrive.

Rather, it will get colder still and colder and colder - all during the
2020s, the 2030s and the 2040s. By the late 2020s, when it will have
become obvious to all but the truly stupid that global cooling is indeed
in effect, the world will be a different place than it is right now.

'HOW TO PREPARE'

The entire planet will be affected by the drop in temperatures as the Sun enters its Grand Minimum cycle.

The seasons of fall, winter and spring will be colder and wetter in many
regions, while drought will become more common in other regions that
suffer from ground soil that remains colder and lacking in nutrients.

The summer seasons will also be cooler, with more cloud cover and wetter
days. Expect warmer temperatures to be pushed further into late August
and September, rather than in June and July and early August.

Blasting storms in winter and spring will mean much more snow and ice
storms - this will make the winter seasons longer (six months) as
opposed to the usual three months.

Of course, this will affect crop yields as the latitude lines for the
growth of crops like canola, corn, soybeans and wheat will fall further
south, and even in southern regions it will be cooler and cloudier than
normal.

The use of energy, and this is where it gets really odd, will mean that
those who are freezing will turn to burning as much carbon (coal, wood)
as possible.

You see, those big loud months who said that "warm is bad" will indeed burn as much carbon as is possible to stay warm.

You can see the hypocrisy of these people who claim that 'warm-is-bad as
they eat their food warm, drink their warm coffees and vacation in warm
locales - all the while; going on and on about how 'warm-is-bad.'

Expect the next 36 years, counting from solar year 2017, as the global
cooling era. So much time has been wasted on the lie of 'man-made global
warming,' that is too late for many to prepare for it on the scale of
making a difference. Far too much time has been simply thrown away
preparing for global cooling on the outright lie of 'man-made global
warming.'

This means, of course, that it is up to individuals and small groups and
organizations to begin to make preparations. Those who laugh at your
preparation now will be the very same ones crying cold and icy tears as
global cooling rages on worldwide.

Figures released on Friday by utility solar analysts Wiki-Solar.org show
that global capacity of utility-scale PV generating capacity at the end
of 2014 reached 35.9GW.

The data shows that new plant commissioned during the year totalled 14.2
GW, almost doubling the record of 7.4 GW set the previous year – and
equal to the entire installed capacity up to the end of 2012.

Worldwide utility-scale photovoltaic power generation is now fairly
evenly split between the three leading continents; Asia, Europe and
North America. 2014 is the first year when Africa and South America
started to show meaningful contributions.

But where is Australia? Every continent increased its volume compared to
2013 – except Australia, which rates zeros on new annual capacity and
cumulative operating capacity. (Actually, on cumulative capacity it
would rate at 30MW – the Royalla and Greenough River solar plants – but
that is 0.03GW, and Wiki-Solar only goes one decimal point).

“Even Europe returned to growth, after declines in 2012 and 2013,” said Wiki-Solar founder Philip Wolfe.

“Performance at the national level is however more variable. Europe’s
resurgence – after the 2012 policy changes in the traditional powerhouse
of Germany – has been fuelled mainly by a buoyant British market.”

Wiki-Solar predicts that the UK will this month leapfrog India, and
maybe even Germany, to become the world’s third or fourth largest
market; driven by a flood of projects racing to beat legislative
changes. The country then risks following other European markets into a
period of stagnation.

Meanwhile Germany is trialling a new approach to utility-scale solar, which may see growth re-starting in coming years.

“Only the US, China and India can claim consistent longer-term growth”,
says Wolfe; though he believes that the drivers in countries like Chile,
Japan and Canada look relatively stable.

“I am hoping they too will become sustainable markets for the industry.”

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

9 March, 2015

Britain's wackiest political party

The Greens like to do things differently. One of their deputy leaders
had just blown a few billion pounds more from their wish-list budget
when the chairwoman – who could hardly be seen in her green jumper
against the vast green background – announced an ‘attunement’.

This turned out to be a reflective – and to my mind rather long –
minute’s silence. ‘It’s incredibly successful if people get stressed,’
explained our host, although several people around me merely used the
pause to check social media on their smartphones.

Welcome to the world of Britain’s wackiest political party, on display this weekend at its spring conference in Liverpool.

There is something mildly amusing about a party that insists on
meditative breaks, has a keynote speaker identified as ‘a non-binary
person from Belarus’ and chairwomen who say things like: ‘I would like
to hear from someone who does not identify as a man.’

And a party that uses such a contorted form of internal democracy it
ends up with daft policies to ban most cars and seriously debates
proposals to extend human rights to all animals.

Yet this is currently the country’s most successful political party,
attracting 100 recruits a day from people dismayed by traditional party
politics. Bizarrely, the duffest interviews given by its bumbling leader
Natalie Bennett only drive up membership.

Joining the hundreds of enthusiastic delegates – a mixture of grizzly
bearded hippies, elderly ideologues, earnest young recruits and
well-spoken women in charity shop chic – offered fresh insight into what
is now the third biggest party in England and Wales. They proclaim the
politics of the future.

Yet much of the time it felt like I had stumbled into an Alan Bennett
sketch filled with middle-class people munching on non-meat sandwiches
as they debated how to save a world wrecked by austerity, bankers and
Conservatives.

Many of these new members – half of whom voted Liberal Democrat at the
last Election – are young people inspired by the idea of reshaping
politics. They were given special badges declaring their status and
enthusiastically snapped up green T-shirts on sale.

Presumably they were not the people targeted in a seminar explaining how to use email.

Yet for all these new recruits rushing around excitedly, there were also
the same old stalls offering vegan recipes for raspberry cake, T-shirts
emblazoned with ‘Still Hate Thatcher’ and angry leaflets denouncing the
monarchy.

On one, I found Jon Liebling, a friendly 47-year-old dancer promoting
the medicinal use of cannabis. He said he had smoked the drug for 26
years to curb anxiety attacks.

His stall proclaimed ‘United Patients Alliance with Norml Women’s
Alliance’. When I asked about Norml Women, he said its founders ‘felt
there was too much testosterone in the cannabis movement’ – but they had
not turned up and he had forgotten the acronym’s meaning.

The Australian-born Bennett promises a new style of politics – which
many people might say she exemplifies with her stumbling interviews and
inability to explain key policies.

Yet after she spoke on Friday, managing to avoid ‘mind blanks’ as she
promised lots of new taxes, the grey-haired woman next to me could not
stop gushing: ‘I am so excited. I am overwhelmed. I feel like I belong
here.’ She turned out to be a Labour deserter. And this is why the
sudden Green surge is giving her previous party palpitations as it is
outflanked on the left.

Indeed, electoral mathematics mean it is possible the Greens might not
just impact on voting outcomes in May but even be in position to join a
coalition led by Ed Miliband.

This is a party that wants to ban the monarchy, House of Lords, much of
the Armed Forces, free schools, foie gras and fur – while freeing up
drugs, borders, brothels and, said its leader, allowing people to join
terror groups such as Islamic State.

Yesterday they chucked in free university undergraduate education,
joining the Greens’ desires for free social care, free universal
childcare, 500,000 extra new homes and a basic income for everyone
costing almost three times the budget of the National Health Service.

Since they also want to end economic growth, I asked their press team
how these policies would be paid for. ‘There’s lots of money around,’
replied one party veteran, looking at me as though I was stupid.

A younger colleague said children would not start schooling until six
under a Green government – although it is hard to believe this would
raise the requisite £350 billion or so needed to close the annual gap
between their policies and economic reality.

The Green Party’s emphasis on ultra-democracy is admirable, giving all
members a voice – but it means scores of strange ideas end up on its
statute books since anything is possible with its Alice in Wonderland
politics.

Among the proposals considered this weekend, for instance, is the
extension of human rights to ‘all sentient life forms’ with ‘the murder,
torture and kidnapping’ of dogs and dolphins carrying the same
penalties as when such crimes are committed against people.

I went to one meeting where 19 people were determining a ban on foie
gras due to the force-feeding of geese. One young man dissented on the
grounds this was discriminatory to dairy cows that were being ‘raped’
and their calves ‘murdered’.

‘To have a ban on the dairy industry would not be popular with the
public. It would be a vote loser,’ responded session leader Ronnie Lee –
although hastily adding he had been a vegan for 44 years in case anyone
might think him unsympathetic to animals.

Then there was the well-attended gender group, which agreed people
should be allowed ‘a third option of X gender’ on passports – although
the discussion leader then confessed this might create risks for people
publicly identified as transgender in many countries.

The meeting also agreed parents should be allowed to avoid putting children down as either male or female on birth certificates.

One elderly Green from Tyneside, doing his best to keep up, admitted he
was confused by the latest terms for transgender people. He was
not the only one, with talk about LGBITQ people – the ‘I’ turned out to
be for Intersex and the ‘Q’ for Questioning.

At the peace and defence group, software engineer Chris Burdess said
they needed to review policies that were ‘unnecessarily inflammatory and
aggressive’ towards diplomats and members of the armed forces. ‘We
don’t want to single them out as evil,’ he said.

But their policy-making process is so ponderous, Burdess admitted this
could not be achieved before the Election. Mind you, they have pledges
to pass measures that were actually passed nearly two decades ago.

Such eccentricities might be endearing if the Greens had not suddenly emerged as a semi-serious force in British politics.

Yet its leaders brush aside criticism of policy absurdities by saying they are merely promoting new ideas and looking long-term.

Downstairs in the Liverpool convention centre was a gathering for fans
of fantasy games. Upstairs, they seemed to be playing fantasy politics.
But if this shambolic bunch ever got a sniff of power, the entire
country would be losers.

‘Protect the Land Owner': Virginia Farmer Continues Fight Against Environmental Group

Instead of filing the same version of the conservation easement that was
signed by its president and a Virginia farmer, the Piedmont
Environmental Council pulled a “bait and switch” that dramatically
altered the document’s terms and conditions.

That’s one of several revelations that have come to light in the past
few days as Martha Boneta, the owner of Liberty Farm in Fauquier County,
Va., prepares to initiate a new round of litigation against Piedmont
Environmental Council, a non-profit land trust.

Boneta refiled a lawsuit Wednesday in Fauquier County Circuit Court that
says the environmental group colluded with realtors and government
officials to issue zoning citations against her property. This was done
to force Boneta into selling her farm, she alleges in the suit.

Boneta also is considering filing a second lawsuit at the federal level against Piedmont Environmental Council.

That suit would be based on the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, commonly known as RICO.

The environmental group’s inspectors and officers have overstepped their
authority under the easement to the point where they have trespassed
across Liberty Farm and interfered with her farming activities, Boneta
alleges.

Moreover, an analysis of the discrepancies that exist between the
documents underpinning the easements shows that it may be “invalid,” and
“unenforceable,” she says.

Boneta bought the farm from the Piedmont Environmental Council in July
2006 with the easement already attached. On June 29, 2006, Boneta and
Chris Miller, the Piedmont group’s president, signed each page of the
purchase contract with the easement.

But on July 26, 2006, the Piedmont Environmental Council filed the
alternative easement with Fauquier County officials, without Boneta’s
consent, just prior to transferring the title of the property over to
her. The new agreement provides the green group with rights and
privileges not in the version Boneta agreed to when she purchased the
farm.

There’s more.

New evidence has emerged that appears to debunk a historical designation
the Piedmont Environmental Council makes in both the signed and filed
versions of the easement that says Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, the
confederate Civil War general, encamped on Boneta’s property on the
evening of July 18, 1861.

Historical accounts of Jackson’s movements in and around the Paris, Va.
section of Fauquier County at that time place the encampment at another
location.

Oddly enough, the Piedmont Environmental Council makes a similar
historical claim about Jackson’s whereabouts in the easement documents
it has associated with Ovoka Farm, also located in Paris, but on a
separate parcel of land from Liberty Farm.

The general couldn’t have been in both places at the same time.

Boneta has provided The Daily Signal with an “Analysis and Assessment of
Damages” — prepared by an economist she hired — that details the losses
she incurred as a result of the altercations and discrepancies in the
easement documents.

The analysis shows that the historical claim made about the Jackson
encampment inflated the real estate price of Liberty Farm well beyond
its actual value.

Boneta paid $425,000 for the property in 2006. Over a two-year period,
she was forced to fence off about 18 acres of the Oak Grove section of
the farm — where the Piedmont Environmental Council located the Jackson
encampment — which meant she could not farm in this area.

“What the PEC has done is unethical and a breach of contract,” Boneta
told The Daily Signal in an interview. “If they can do this to me and my
family, what else have they done? We are shocked to learn that a
non-profit 501(c )(3) that is supposed to operate in the public interest
would commit this kind of an act.”

The idea behind conservation easements is for property owners to receive
tax breaks in exchange for agreeing to restrict future development on a
portion of their property. The Boneta easement lists the Piedmont
Environmental Council and the Virginia Outdoors Foundation as
co-holders.

The environmental council has not responded to recent inquiries from The
Daily Signal seeking comment, but it has presented the public with an
online post that provides details of its history with the property and
the differences it has with Boneta.

The Virginia Outdoors Foundation passed a resolution last November that
said it would be willing to assume full control of the easement if the
opposing sides could come to terms. That has turned out to be a big
“if.” The Virginia Outdoors Foundation has uncovered “a number of
serious flaws” in the easement it says must be addressed through “a
corrective amendment.”

What Boneta describes as a “bait and switch” between the signed easement
and the easement filed with the county government further complicates
the ongoing legal standoff as there are substantial differences between
the two documents. In fact, entire sections were added to the filed
version of the easement without Boneta’s consent, according to the
“Analysis and Assessment” paper.

These new revelations could serve as the basis for the federal lawsuit
Boneta expects to file on top of the suit that has been reactivated at
the state circuit court level.

“The only reason why the lawsuit was withdrawn at all was to give an opportunity for mediation,” Boneta explained.

“The PEC has not taken responsibility for the horrendous bad acts and
damage they have done. We have no choice than to re-file the existing
lawsuit as well as additional lawsuits and claims.”

In October 2014, Environmental Health published a study purporting to
show fracking operations for oil and gas production cause dangerous air
quality issues. The study has been cited by environmental groups, the
media, and some policymakers as “proof” of the dangers associated with
fracking.

In this Policy Brief for The Heartland Institute, chemist and
environmental consultant Rich Trzupek identifies significant flaws in
the study. For example,

* the study’s authors did not conduct upwind and downwind sampling, but
rather assumed background concentrations based on national averages;

* the risk levels used are based on a lifetime of exposure to the target
pollutant at the measured concentration. In the majority of cases this
comparison is not scientifically defensible;

* and the study is not an examination of air quality during fracking,
but rather an examination of air quality near operations and equipment
common to oil and natural gas production and transportation regardless
of whether the well was fracked.

Trzupek also notes, “In 60 percent of the sampling events, ...
concentrations of target pollutants did not exceed the alarm levels set
by the authors. To their credit, the authors did not attempt to hide
this fact. Nevertheless, this fact has been routinely ignored by media
and policymakers ...”

In May 2014, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a
report titled Climate Change Adaptation: DOD Can Improve Infrastructure
Planning and Processes to Better Account for Potential Impacts.[1] The
authors write, “We were asked to assess [the Department of Defense’s]
progress in taking action to adapt its U.S. infrastructure to the
challenges of climate change.” The request came from five Democratic
members of the U.S. Senate: Barbara Boxer (CA), Mark Begich (AK), Al
Franken (MN), Jeff Merkley (OR), and Sheldon Whitehouse (RI).

The phrasing of the request suggests there is no doubt climate change
poses a “challenge” the Department of Defense (DOD) should be
addressing. This bias is not surprising since each of the elected
officials who asked for the report has in the past made alarmist claims
about the causes and consequences of climate change and called for
policies to increase the cost of fossil fuels and subsidize the
development and use of alternative fuels such as biofuels, solar, and
wind.

The following critique of GAO’s study reveals GAO has overlooked
convincing evidence that what is called “climate change” is unlikely to
have a greater effect on DOD’s infrastructure or America’s military
preparedness in general than past changes in climate. GAO also
overlooked evidence that shows requiring DOD to invest in mitigation or
adaptation to address phantom risks could divert resources from other
more urgent needs, reducing military preparedness.

Deep in the Sumatran jungle, a British zoologist forms a magical bond
with a young orang-utan. His mission? To help stop their habitat being
ravaged

It is an utterly heart-melting image. A young Sumatran orang-utan swings
down from his tree to nuzzle and play with a British zoologist who is
here to save his life.

Dr Ian Singleton gets a privileged close-up view of how these highly
intelligent animals are possessed of such an extraordinarily wide range
of emotions, and why they form such close and touching bonds with human
beings. As well they might: sharing 97 per cent of humans’ DNA, they are
one of our nearest living relatives.

Tragically, though, these bewitching pictures, captured by environmental
photographer David Higgs, betray a story that shows humanity at its
most rapacious.

Orang-utans like these face becoming the first species of great ape to
become officially extinct. There are just 6,000 still wild in Sumatra’s
swamps and rainforests. Their numbers are reducing rapidly because their
habitat is being ravaged, largely to make way for the mass plantation
of palms.

The plants produce palm oil, which is used increasingly in an
ever-growing variety of western consumer products from chocolate bars
and biscuits, to soaps and cooking oil.

It is also used to give diesel cars a ‘green’ bio-diesel mix – the EU
has committed to eco-targets that say ten per cent of transport energy
must come from renewable sources including bio-fuels by 2020. Indonesia
produces 31 million tonnes of palm oil every year, and uses about 3.4
million tonnes for its own bio-diesel consumption.

Dr Singleton, who cut his teeth at Gerald Durrell’s zoo in Jersey, is
director of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme (SOCP), a
charity based in Medan, north-west Sumatra. Here he runs a health and
quarantine centre, where sick and injured orang-utans are nursed back to
health; arranges the rescue of orang-utan orphans and those kidnapped
for pets; and campaigns to keep what is left of their habitats.

Orang-utans can be subjected to horrifying violence – often inflicted by
loggers, miners and oil-palm planters. One of the orang-utans getting
urgent care at the centre is blind. He was rescued as a ‘teenager’,
after being shot 62 times. Three of those gun shots hit him in the eyes.
Having lost his sight, he will never be able to return to the wild.

He came from the Leuser Ecosystem, an area where most Sumatran
orang-utans live. It is supposed to be protected. Another orang-utan at
the SOCP centre is known as ‘No Nose’, because most of it was sliced off
by a machete.

Dr Singleton told The Mail on Sunday that the threat to the apes’
habitat didn’t come from local people, but from large, multinational
companies that ‘make all the profit from cutting down the forests but
bear none of the huge costs’. Indeed, most of SOCP’s staff are
Indonesian, including a cadre of dedicated vets, scientists and
conservationists.

The threat is very real. One area which had, until recently, one of the
largest and densest orang-utan populations was the Tripa peat swamp
forest near Medan. ‘Since the mid-1990s, it’s shrunk from 60,000
hectares (232 square miles) to just 9,000 (34),’ Dr Singleton said.

The wider Leuser Ecosystem – which once covered more than 7,700 square
miles – is disappearing just as rapidly. The problem, Dr Singleton
added, had been exacerbated because Indonesia’s Aceh province, where
SOCP mostly works, was granted regional autonomy.

Legally, its forests and swamps were supposed to be protected, ‘but the
Aceh government’s land use plan doesn’t even mention this’. Recently,
SOCP successfully took a firm that had carved out illegal concessions in
the swamp lands to court, resulting in a £20 million fine.

Yet the destruction continues. Typically, Dr Singleton said, the
oil-palm planters were ‘first on the scene’ when a forest area was first
opened up. In their wake came roads, another deadly threat.

‘Once you break up orang-utan populations by fragmenting their habitats
with roads, they swiftly die out.’ There is no doubting the size and
profits of the palm oil industry. In 2013, Indonesia exported 21 million
metric tonnes of the oil, worth more than £15 billion.

‘The best thing would be an immediate moratorium on the use of biofuel
from this source… I would like to see the EU investigate the
consequences of its decisions.’

Senior Greenpeace campaign official Patrick Venditti agrees. ‘Fuelling
Europe’s vehicles in this manner may well drive orang-utans, as well as
tigers and other endangerd species in Sumatra, to extinction.’

SOCP now wants to establish an ‘orang-utan haven’ near Medan, as a
centre for conservation, education and research that will also give
local people a chance to experience the apes close-up, as many Sumatrans
have never seen an orang-utan. ‘This is a critically endangered
species,’ Dr Singleton said. ‘To save them, we need all the help we can
get.’

Rep. Raul Grijalva, a Democrat from Arizona and ranking member of the
House of Representatives Committee on Environment and Natural Resources,
sent a letter to seven university presidents demanding information on
funding sources, financial disclosure guidelines, and all draft
testimony or exchanges relating to the testimony of certain researchers
who have testified before Congress on climate change issues.

Grijalva’s letter asked about the climate research and funding for seven
scholars: geographer Robert C. Balling, Jr., Arizona State University;
atmospheric scientist John Christy, University of Alabama; climatologist
Judith Curry, Georgia Institute of Technology; historian Steven
Hayward, Pepperdine University; climatologist David Legates, University
of Delaware; atmospheric physicist Richard Lindzen, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology; and political scientist Roger Pielke Jr.,
University of Colorado.

The letter, plainly intended to intimidate climate scientists who dare
to question the Obama administration’s often-stated view that climate
change is man-made and dangerous, generated heated responses from
science organizations, individual scientists, and other members of
Congress.

“Sends a Chilling Message”

The American Meteorological Society, the national scientific society for
the development and dissemination of atmospheric, oceanic, and
hydrologic sciences, responded to a letter from U.S. Grijalva with a
letter of its own. The letter, signed by Dr. Keith L. Seitter, AMS
Executive Director, and dated February 27, is a stinging rebuke of
Grijalva’s demands.

“Publicly singling out specific researchers based on perspectives they
have expressed and implying a failure to appropriately disclose funding
sources — and thereby questioning their scientific integrity — sends a
chilling message to all academic researchers,” Seitter wrote. “Further,
requesting copies of the researcher’s communications related to external
funding opportunities or the preparation of testimony impinges on the
free pursuit of ideas that is central to the concept of academic
freedom.”

Seitter goes on to say peer-review, not political inquiries into funding
sources, “is the appropriate mechanism to assess the validity and
quality of scientific research, regardless of the funding sources
supporting that research as long as those funding sources and any
potential conflicts of interest are fully disclosed. The scientific
process that includes testing and validation of concepts and ideas —
discarding those that cannot successfully withstand such testing — is
chronicled in the peer reviewed scientific literature. We encourage the
Committee to rely on the full corpus of peer-reviewed literature on
climate science as the most reliable source for knowledge and
understanding that can be applied to the policy options before you.”

Attacking Skeptics’ Funding

Grijalva justified his query by citing recent media attacks on
researchers skeptical of the theory greenhouse gas emissions from the
burning of fossil fuels for energy are causing catastrophic global
warming.

The latest media assault began in late February with an article in The
New York Times repeating claims made by a long-time Greenpeace staffer,
Kert Davies, that Harvard-Smithsonian astrophysicist concealed financial
support received by the Smithsonian Institution to support his work.
The Times article noted Soon’s work was supported by more than $1.2
million from fossil fuel companies over 11 years.

The information was not new, as Davies had been pushing similar stories
as early as 1997. The Times reporter failed to mention the funds went to
the Smithsonian and not directly to Dr. Soon, and the Smithsonian kept
approximately half the money it raised specifically to ensure that Dr.
Soon’s research was appropriate and conducted without undue influence by
donors.

The Smithsonian has said it is investigating the matter. Since its staff
negotiated and signed every contract for all of the money raised for
Dr. Soon’s work, it presumably already has found there is no conflict of
interest on Dr. Soon’s part.

The Smithsonian Institution’s charter says all such grant results “must
be unclassified, in order not to abridge the institution’s right to
publish, without restriction, findings that result from this research
project.” The funders neither directed nor had control over the research
or the dissemination of its results.

Grijalva’s ‘Lysenkoism, Witch Hunt’

Responding to Grijalva’s letter, climatologist David Legates said,
“Grijalva was asked why he targeted the seven of us. His response was
that we were the most well-published, most often-cited, and had the most
impact on public policy in the United States. Not that our research was
likely fraudulent, not that we had taken big sums of money from foreign
governments, or that we simply had been publishing bad research. None
of these were the reason. It was simply that we are too effective with
our research and too persuasive with our arguments. Pure and simple. And
since we disagree with him and his views, we must be harassed. Maybe
that will stop us.

“Unfortunately, we have entered into a new age of Lysenkoism,” Legates
said. “Lysenkoism” refers to an episode in science history where the
scientific process was heavily influenced by the Soviet government in
order to reach politically acceptable conclusions.

Roger Pielke, Jr., another of the researchers whose funding sources and
e-mails Grijalva requested, wrote on his blog that Grijalva should
already know he has never received any funding from fossil fuel
companies and has no conflict of interest, since he has testified to
this before Congress on several occasions. “I know with complete
certainty that this investigation is a politically-motivated ‘witch
hunt’ designed to intimidate me (and others) and to smear my name,”
Pielke wrote.

Pielke goes on, “The incessant attacks and smears are effective, no
doubt. I have already shifted all of my academic work away from climate
issues. I am simply not initiating any new research or papers on the
topic and I have ring-fenced my slowly diminishing blogging on the
subject. I can’t imagine the message being sent to younger scientists.”

John Nothdurft, director of government relations for The Heartland
Institute, said the probe into Soon and other climate researchers is
part of a campaign to divert attention away from the facts about climate
change. “Instead of having a real conversation with the American public
about the science and economics of climate change, well-financed
advocacy groups and politicians with many ‘conflicts of interest’ of
their own would rather direct the public’s focus on who funds nonprofit
organizations, independent research institutions, scientists,
economists, and other experts,” Nothdurft said.

“Apparently it is now a national offense to raise any concerns over
certain aspects of the science or economics of policies that purport to
deal with human-caused climate change,” Nothdurft said. “This witch hunt
has nothing to do with ensuring that science is accurate or reliable.
These attacks are leveled by people who refuse to engage in civil debate
over important matters of science, economics, and public policy. They
should not be allowed to win the day.”

Even alarmists in the global warming debate say Grijalva has gone too
far with his demands. Bob Ward, policy and communications director with
the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment in
the U.K., a frequent critic of climate skeptics, tweeted, “Politicians
should not persecute academics with whom they disagree. No ifs or buts.”

Controversial climate researcher Michael Mann, recently sued by the
attorney general of Virginia requesting e-mails concerning Mann’s
climate research during his time at the state-supported University of
Virginia, called the letters from Grijalva and other Democrats “heavy
handed and overly aggressive.”

Activists’ Funding Goes Unquestioned

On her blog, Climate etc., climatologist Judith Curry responded to
Grijalva’s letter, arguing if Congress and the press are truly concerned
whether funding taints climate research, they should also be asking
about funding from large environmental foundations and lobbying groups
pushing for government action. Curry asked, “Are we not to be concerned
by funding from green advocacy groups and scientists serving on the
Boards of green advocacy groups?”

Among the potential conflicts of interest not under scrutiny by the
media or congressional Democrats are those of Princeton professor
Michael Oppenheimer, who has written a number of peer-reviewed papers
and testified before Congress on multiple occasions. He previously
served as chief scientist for, and is still a science advisor to, the
multimillion-dollar lobbying group Environmental Defense.

Joe Romm, author of several books on climate change, has also testified
on several occasions before Congress concerning global warming. Romm is a
senior fellow and chief science advisor at the Center for American
Progress, which argues for greater government control over the economy.
Neither Romm nor his coauthors filed conflict-of-interest disclosures
for their article in Environmental Research Letters, although the
journal explicitly requires it, stating, “All authors and co-authors are
required to disclose any potential conflict of interest when submitting
their article (e.g. employment, consulting fees, research contracts,
stock ownership, patent licenses, honoraria, advisory affiliations,
etc.). This information should be included in an acknowledgments section
at the end of the manuscript (before the references section). All
sources of financial support for the project must also be disclosed in
the acknowledgments section.”

Grijalva himself has taken $78,854 from environmental lobbying groups, according to the imablawg website.

Pielke tweeted, “Once you tug on the thread of undisclosed financial
interests in climate science, you’ll find it more a norm than
exception.”

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

8 March, 2015

Media stunt "Exposes Climate Deniers" (?)

We will have to wait and see how vicious the VICE production
(mentioned below) is but I append after the article some comments on the
matter from Jim Lakely, Director of Communications at The Heartland
Institute

The third season of the Emmy-winning news series VICE debuts today at 11
p.m. on HBO. The first episode covers the pressing issue of sea level
rise. VICE Media founder Shane Smith travels to the bottom of the world
to investigate the instability of the West Antarctic ice sheet and see
how the continent is melting. Then, the VICE crew heads to Bangladesh to
capture the impacts of rising sea levels on this South Asian country.

“From the UN Climate conference to the People’s Climate March to the
forces that deny the science of global climate change,” says HBO, “this
extended report covers all sides of the issue and all corners of the
globe, ending in a special interview with Vice President Joe Biden.”

VICE is an innovative media company whose correspondents cover stories
that traditional news outlets often overlook. HBO partners with VICE to
produce the weekly series. And the season premiere has good timing
because next week Robert Swan will take his 2041 team on this year’s
International Antarctic Expedition to show the firsthand effects of
climate change on the continent.

“Antarctica holds 90 percent of the world’s ice and 70 percent of its
freshwater,” says VICE Media founder Shane Smith. “So if even a small
fraction of the ice sheet in Antarctica melts, the resulting sea level
rise will completely remap the world as we know it. And it is already
happening: In the last decade, some of the most significant glaciers [in
Antarctica] have tripled their melt rate.”

Antarctica is getting all of this attention because if “it starts
melting at the same rate as Greenland, we’re in for trouble,” says
Smith. And yet, “in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence,” says
Smith, there’s a small, but vocal group of climate deniers that have
skewed public perception of climate science and stonewalled efforts to
take meaningful action in addressing climate change.

VICE gets an inside look at these self-proclaimed “skeptics” at their
annual International Conference on Climate Change hosted by the
Heartland Institute, who are funded by the likes of Exxon Mobil and the
Koch Brothers. As Upton Sinclair famously said, “It is difficult to get a
man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not
understanding it.”

Any promotional material that contains the words “ending in a special
interview with Vice President Joe Biden” is special all right … just not
in the way they imagine.

I remember the VICE crew at ICCC-9. Mostly nice fellas, smiling on the
outside while gathering their audio and video, but certainly frowning on
the inside. I was helpful, giving them background information on
Heartland and these conferences. It obviously didn’t take.

VICE “star” Shane Smith parachuted in for one day to interview some
people. One of them was Joe Bast. Smith was so ignorant of even the most
basic knowledge about this debate he embarrassed himself. I believe I
have some raw video of that interview on my home computer.

If you go to the link, one note about the second video, which is about
Heartland’s latest climate conference: Smith proves himself incapable of
even Googling Heartland and finding our website. He calls us an
“environmental organization.”

Paper: Global Warming? More Like Global Cooling

A new
paper claims that declining solar activity since 1998 could mean falling
global temperatures in the years ahead — contrary to predictions of
rapid warming made by virtually all climate models.

“The
stagnation of temperature since 1998 was caused by decreasing solar
activity since 1998,” wrote Jürgen Lange Heine, a physicist with the
German-based European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE).

“From
1900 to 1998, solar radiation increased by 1.3 W / m², but since 1998
it has diminished, and could reach values ??similar to those of the
early 20th century. A drop in global temperature over the next few years
is predicted,” Heine wrote.

Heine argues that warming during the
20th Century was not caused by increasing carbon dioxide emissions, but
instead by increasing solar activity, changes in cloud cover caused by
cosmic rays and huge amounts of cloud condensation nuclei in the
atmosphere from the nuclear weapons tests conducted from 1945 to 1963.

Climate
scientists have attributed this warming largely to carbon dioxide
emissions emitted from human activities, mainly from burning fossil
fuels, but Heine says the connection between carbon dioxide and
temperature is only superficial.

“Despite steadily rising carbon
dioxide levels observed in the years 1945 to 1975, as well as since
1998, a decrease or stagnation in global temperatures occurred that does
not fit with the carbon dioxide hypothesis,” Heine wrote.

The
“stagnation” in global temperatures since 1998 Heine refers to is known
as the “pause” or “hiatus” in global warming. Both satellite-derived and
surface temperature readings show no significant warming trend in
global temperatures for the last 10 to 20 years.

Heine is not the
first researcher to tie the “pause” in warming to declining solar
activity. Several researchers over the years have predicted that
declining solar activity could plunge the Earth into another “Little Ice
Age.”

Shrinivas Aundhkar, director of India’s Mahatma Gandhi
Mission at the Centre for Astronomy and Space Technology, recently told
people attending a lecture that declining solar activity could mean a
“mini ice age-like situation” is nigh.

“The sun undergoes two
cycles that are described as maximum and minimum,” Aundhkar said. “The
activity alternates every 11 years, and the period is termed as one
solar cycle. At present, the sun is undergoing the minimum phase,
reducing global temperatures.”

High sunspot activity has been
associated with periods of warming on the Earth, like the period between
1950 and 1998. On the other hand, low sunspot activity has been linked
to cooler periods, like the so-called “Little Ice Age” when temperatures
were much cooler than today.

Scientists have struggled to
explain why global temperatures have not risen nearly as fast as climate
models predicted. Researchers have offered dozens of explanations as to
why global temperatures have stagnated since 1998.

A recent
study by Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann, a
noted environmentalist and creator of the “hockey stick” graph, claims
that man-made global warming is on the rise but is being tempered by
natural cooling cycles from the oceans.

“We know that it is
important to distinguish between human-caused and natural climate
variability so we can assess the impact of human-caused climate change
on a variety of phenomena including drought and weather extremes,” Mann
said in a statement. “The North Atlantic and North Pacific oceans appear
to be drivers of substantial natural, internal climate variability on
timescales of decades.”

Other
research suggests that warming has stalled because increasing amounts of
carbon dioxide are being absorbed by the world’s oceans, which is
causing them to warm and acidify.

A recent study published in the
journal Nature found that most of the excess heat from carbon dioxide
has been trapped in the tropical southern oceans. Researchers said the
top 1,600 feet of ocean water warmed 0.009 degrees Fahrenheit. The next
4,000 feet warmed just 0.0036 degrees since 2006.

But the study
also illustrates how the ocean is able to absorb lots of carbon dioxide,
or heat, without experiencing much warming.

In
Sept. 2011, I did a video explaining why I thought the winters of
‘12-'13, '13-'14 and '14-'15 could be quite severe for the U.S. We had
the late start in '12-'13, the brutal start to finish of '13-'14, and
then the fast out of the gate, back off, then come on gangbusters winter
this year.

When one considers November challenged the legendary
November of 1976 in terms of cold, and that February went after such
years as 1934, 1958, 1978 and 1979 – all holy grails of cold for people
who understand how the weather can get so extreme – then you understand
the magnitude of the cold that major population areas of the U.S. have
dealt with. Moreover, the preseason snow forecast from Weatherbell.com
is looking very good, and snowfall is not done yet for the season. The
following graph was made in October, not after all this started. In
fact, in mid-winter, there were loud cries asserting winter’s demise,
similar to the pre-2010 “Snowmeggedon.” That winter backed off also.

It’s
not perfect, but it said loudly, Look out, there is going to be a lot
of snow this year. In the West, a lot of the snow is early and late in
the season, so it’s common to see late-season rallies. For instance,
Denver had a very snowy November and the snowiest February on
record. So there is time to “bullseye” the southern and central
Rockies.

And precisely what we loudly proclaimed beforehand about
the result of what we saw coming last winter and now this winter (and
in early Jan 2013, warning about the rest of that one) is being echoed
by economists: "Slowing U.S. economy is inconvenient truth"
(MarketWatch)

A quote from the article:

“[A] good chunk of this [economic] slowdown traces to the unusually
severe weather that struck most of the country late last year and early
in this year.”

Our reasons were laid out well beforehand and were
centered on an idea I picked up while talking with some meteorologists I
knew around Houston in 2007. I listened to their idea and researched it
privately, getting input from people I knew and trusted in the field.
There were plenty of years to look at, plenty of examples of similar set
ups. The point is that you can see this coming by lining up patterns in
the past.

In the highly competitive world of private
meteorology, cutting edge ideas are battle-tested. One does this on
one’s own time, and your “funding” is having a job where clients pay you
to be right on the weather. So you spend countless hours researching
ideas to give them an edge.

It is the nature of the competitive
meteorologist to trust but verify that all that came before you is a
foundation for the chance to compete against the ultimate opponent –
weather. One understands that in an infinite system as majestic as the
atmosphere there is nothing etched in stone. Grasping the total picture
with a intimate knowledge of the past is essential to even having a
chance to hit events that resemble some of the great occurrences of the
past. While similar, nothing is ever the same!

In talks I give
now, I always make sure people know that no extra CO2 was used to come
up with my ideas. It’s done to get a laugh, the point being the forecast
does not take CO2 into account.

I also stated I hoped that, if
my ideas had merit, it would wake people up to the folly of the
statements being made when the earth was still in a warming phase. I
introduced publicly on the O'Reilly Factor the Triple Crown of Cooling,
which is now The Grand Slam of Climate.

It was also opined that,
in the past, when these cyclical shifts occurred, there were local
pickups of what is now being called extreme weather. But it is nothing
out of the ordinary in the big picture, no sign of an appending
atmospheric apocalypse, warm or cold. It’s nothing that is not well
within the realm of what nature does. Why? Because we used examples of
past events before the fact to set all this up.

Case in point:
the idea we put out in Jan. that this month in the Northeast could rival
the benchmark February of 1934. That was said before it happened. You
will notice many of the people reporting on the cold now bring that
month up. But we explained the why before the what. Anyone can say there
is six inches of snow on the ground when there is six inches of snow on
the ground.

But my better angel years ago was hoping such events
I was alluding to would wake people up to the folly of things they were
saying about man-made global warming. The very people I was saying that
to instead have doubled down on excuses.

I was going to do this
opinion on one particular column I saw Feb. 17 in USA Today titled
“Nationally, it’s been one of the warmest winters on record” that used
data through Jan. to claim this was one of the warmest winters on
record.

I got mad for four reasons:

a.) The author seemed to forget that Feb. accounts for a third of winter, so 20% of the winter season was not considered.

b.)
The West was warm, but many of the stations are far newer, have less
records and are less reliable as far as station upkeep goes than the
long running stations in the Plains and East.

c.) While Nevada
and Utah are great states, far less people live there than the
Northeast, which the author had the amazing chutzpah to call “chilly” in
the face of a run at the coldest month ever.

d.) The entire
Heating Degree day season is November-March. When you include November,
it’s darn close to last year (which was also being spun twofold: 1. It’s
not that cold, and 2. Yes, it is cold, but it’s caused by global
warming).

Like most of the great winters in the Eastern U.S.,
there is a lot of warmth in the West and North. The enhanced meridional
flow is something we forecasted based on the Pacific temperatures last
year and this year. No big mystery unless you either don’t know about it
or do and choose to deceive people as to the cause of such things.

In
any case, I said I was going to write on that, but with the onslaught
of one blast after another that has come down the pike from people
pushing this issue (the colder it got, the bigger the excuse) – the
latest being a witch hunt launched by people in congress on several
climate scientists who actually believe there may be some human
influence but dare to question how much – I decided I can’t single out
one article. They are coming fast and furious by people who had no idea
before what was going on.

Explanations that, frankly, make a lot
of us in the field laugh, including some people I am friendly with but
don’t see eye to eye with me. (Side note: I never see these folks in
public venues, where one can be embarrassed if wrong. But they love to
explain after the fact what they didn’t know before.)

So here we
are, being told CO2 is responsible for global warming — climate change,
the term they are now using, is a natural event which only people that
claim humans are driving them deny – and events perfectly natural and to
a large degree fairly predictable simply by understanding what went on
before. What we have to ask these people in the face of the actual
geological record that shows CO2 and temperatures is: Why is it CO2 now,
but not before?

Anyone see any linkage between CO2 and temperatures?

Why
would the increase of one molecule of CO2 out of every 10,000 molecules
of air over a 100-year period suddenly pick now, at 400 ppm, to
overcome the sun, oceans, stochastic events and the design of the
system, including the physical properties of CO2 in relation to the
other greenhouse gases, of which it’s only 1%?

The answer below I think makes as much sense as the explanations I am seeing out there:

Could
it be there is a CO2 fairy waving its magic wand? While CO2 has little
to do with actual weather and climate, as shown by past events, both
recent and in the geological time scale, apparently it can affect people
who believe it does.

Here’s
a quick update on the latest developments in environmental regulation:
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is preparing what likely will
be the most costly regulation in history—stringent ozone restrictions
that manufacturers estimate will cost the economy $140 billion and
threaten one million jobs.

The EPA and Army Corps of Engineers
are attempting to vastly expand their authority over virtually every
land-use decision under the guise of protecting wetlands. And then
there’s the Obama administration’s attempt to bypass Congress with its
“climate action plan” to drastically raise the cost of the fossil fuels
that power the nation.

Although the details of these various
regulatory schemes differ, collectively they represent deeply disturbing
aspects of current environmental policy: agencies routinely exceeding
their statutory powers, the absence of scientific and economic analyses
to inform decision-making, the penchant of Congress to ignore regulatory
costs and delegate their powers, and a persistent imbalance between
regulatory costs and benefits.

These problems represent
dysfunction of a high order, the result of years of regulatory abuse.
Nor are the problems solely economic. Overly politicized policies shift
attention and resources from real environmental threats to ideological
causes—and the environment suffers.

For years, some conservatives
(and only some) have argued against ineffective and inefficient
environmental regulation. But just saying “no” isn’t enough. Americans
care about the environment and thus advocates of sensible natural
resource stewardship must initiate commonsense reforms and offer
alternatives to the status quo.

Toward those ends, the Heritage
Foundation this week released its recommendations for improving
environmental policy. The new Environmental Policy Guide features 167
recommendations for reform that arose from consultations with dozens of
experts from a variety of fields. In nine chapters organized by
environmental issue, the guide offers reforms that can be achieved
through legislation, authorizations and oversight.

For example,
the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act require amendment in
order for property owners to receive compensation when government
restrictions result in the loss of property value. Otherwise, there is
no check on the agencies’ “taking” of private property, and individuals
are forced to pay the costs of policies that supposedly benefit all.

Congress
also must conduct oversight hearings on the near-term impacts of the
administration’s sweeping climate action plan on electric power
reliability. In addition, there should be no funding to implement or
enforce any regulation that is based on information or data that does
not meet federal quality standards. Junk science makes for junk policy.

A
federal judge on Monday strongly criticized the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) for being either careless or incompetent,
calling the agency “offensively unapologetic” in its mishandling of
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from at least one
conservative group.

Also, concerning one EPA employee in
particular, the judge said the person "at best, demonstrated utter
indifference to EPA's FOIA obligations" and "at worst" the employee "is
lying," although there is not enough evidence in the record to determine
which conclusion is correct.

In his opinion in the case of
Landmark Legal Foundation v. the Environmental Protection Agency, U.S.
District Judge Royce Lamberth described the EPA’s attitude toward FOIA
requests as “shoddy,” “offensive” and “insulting” after the agency
effectively ignored and continually botched a FOIA request from the LLF,
a right-leaning law firm, in 2012.

“Either scenario reflects poorly upon EPA and surely serves to diminish the public’s trust in the agency,” he added.

On
Aug. 17, 2012, the Landmark Legal Foundation, a public interest law
firm run by well-known conservative attorney Mark Levin, filed a FOIA
request with the EPA asking for information and records regarding any
outside environmental groups the agency had consulted or communicated
with on policy and regulations.

The LLF also asked for any
records showing that the EPA was slowing or delaying the announcement of
any regulations or public comment opportunities until after the
presidential election on Nov. 6 of 2012.

The short, two-part FOIA started a series a actions in the EPA that would last more than two years.

The
EPA first denied LLF’s request for expedited processing in October of
2012. The agency then issued a notice to 45 of its employees to preserve
“potentially relevant information” relating to the FOIA request with a
due date of October 30.

This notice, however, was not sent to the
agency’s top two officials, then-Administrator Lisa Jackson and Deputy
Administrator Robert Perciasepe.

Aaron Dickerson, special
assistant to the Administrator, and Nena Shaw, then-special assistant to
the Deputy Administrator, reportedly received but did not respond to
the notice, and were not given the due date, Lamberth said.

The
agency then dragged its feet on responding to the FOIA until well after
the Nov. 6 election, when President Barack Obama was ultimately elected
for a second term. The EPA officials also failed to conduct a thorough
search for potentially relevant EPA records, including searching
Administrator Jackson’s personal email accounts that she used for
government business, Lamberth noted in his opinion.

Jackson’s
Blackberry, which easily could have contained relevant information, was
erased following her resignation in February 2013, Lamberth added.

Lamberth
also noted that “there is no evidence in the record
that…anyone…conducted a search of the Deputy Administrator’s records
prior to December 20, 2014” – more than two years after the initial FOIA
request was filed.

On top of failing to look through relevant
records, Special Assistant Nena Shaw also claimed to have experienced
“technical difficulties” while transferring information to the
collection database. Instead, she “printed the responsive records” but
“does not recall precisely what happened to the printed records,”
Lamberth said.

“Such an assertion is about as close to a sworn
‘dog ate my homework’ statement as one can make,” Lamberth said, adding
that “the Court can only conclude that such responsive records – if they
ever existed in the first instance – have been lost.”

Lamberth
further said, "At best, Shaw demonstrated utter indifference to EPA's
FOIA obligations. At worst, Shaw is lying. There is not enough in the
record from either Landmark or EPA to determine which is correct. What
is clear, however, is that Shaw goes out of her way to avoid presenting
any defined timeline for her search-related activities, which only adds
to the fuzziness of her declaration."

Despite slamming the EPA
for its poor management of the LLF’s information request, Lamberth
denied LLF’s request for sanctions against the agency for withholding
information, explaining that LLF could not prove that EPA officials
acted in “bad faith,” and that “[n]egligence is insufficient to impose
punitive sanctions.”

However, that did not stop Lamberth from
stating that the EPA’s “offensively unapologetic” mishandling of the
FOIA request “leaves far too much room for a reasonable observer to
suspect misconduct.”

“The Court is left wondering whether EPA
has learned from its mistakes, or if it will merely continue to address
FOIA requests in the clumsy manner that has seemingly become its
custom,” Lamberth said.

“This Court would implore the Executive
Branch to take greater responsibility in ensuring that all EPA FOIA
requests – regardless of the political affiliation of the requester –
are treated with equal respect and consciousness,” he added.

"Judge Lamberth's decision should be a complete
embarrassment for everyone at the Environmental Protection Agency,”
Levin said. “Their conduct, from start to finish in this case, was
reprehensible, and the Judge made clear that they avoided severe
punitive sanctions only because of the narrowly defined requirements of
the law.”

"The corporate culture at the EPA, from the
Administrator down to the most junior administrative assistant, is that
of an imperial bureaucracy answerable only to its own ideological
agenda,” Levin added. “To them, the American public are nothing but
public enemies. And the EPA shouldn't judge its success in handling FOIA
requests by whether or not any of its people wound up facing federal
contempt charges or possible criminal prosecution."

Elizabeth
Harrington at the Washington Free Beacon offers a familiar old slice of
sleaze funded by the federal government. An “investigative theatre”
company in New York, The Civilians, has been granted almost $950,000 by
the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and believe it or not, the
National Science Foundation.

Why should the American taxpayer –
you – be forced to pay for the garbage that follows? Because you, and
everyone else, would never pay for it if it weren’t mandated by this
radical administration which will be gone in 22 months, thank God.

Their
most recent work of “art” was a musical called “Pretty Filthy,”
exploring the “human side of the porn industry.” While the porno piece
wasn’t directly funded by the NEA, federal funds keep this propaganda
wagon on the road.

In “Pretty Filthy,” the troupe based their
songs and scripts on interviews with “adult entertainers.” They promoted
themselves as “armed with notepads and recorders,” providing an
insider’s glimpse into the “other Hollywood” – the porn industry in the
San Fernando Valley.

Naturally The New York Times loved it.
Critic Charles Isherwood oozed that the “thoroughly winning cast” showed
an “admirable sympathy” for porn stars. He liked the lyrics (“Two
things you need to shoot porn? A camera and a thumb”) and the snark (“It
was like being with a corpse … a corpse who [sic] giggled”).

But
usually The Civilians are funded to churn out radical-left claptrap.
Last year, they were awarded $20,000 for a podcast series called “Let Me
Ascertain You.” In a series titled “LGBTQ All Out!,” they explored
topics such as “a teenage lesbian shunned by her Jehovah’s Witness
community, a master domination top who locks people up in his basement, a
gay military soldier who attempted suicide, and the life of homeless
gay youth on the streets of New York City.”

The company received a
$12,000 NEA grant in January 2013 for new plays from their “Research
and Development Group.” Winter Miller, a playwright, is working on a
project about the “stigma” of abortion. Asking when life begins is
hurtful, Miller believes, and has “led to the murder of doctors and the
growth of extremist movements in the United States, of which the tea
party is the least overtly violent.”

The NEA also provided The
Civilians a $25,000 grant to produce a musical on the “Paris Commune”
that briefly ruled the city in 1871, which, according to Marxist.com,
was “where the working class for the first time in history, took power
into its own hands.” Leon Trotsky preached about its lessons and how the
“masses” had failed to embrace the revolution. Playwright Michael
Friedman insisted the commune resembled the hope springing out of the
Occupy Wall Street movement.

Overall, The Civilians has received
$247,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts since 2007, including
$65,000 for “The Great Immensity,” a musical about the doom rapidly
approaching through climate change. The majority of the project was
funded by a National Science Foundation grant of $697,177. Characters
proclaimed panicky things like, “We are actually breaking the world. We
break the world and it’s done. Game over.” Why hasn’t everyone grasped
the allegedly imminent demise of our planet? “People are stupid,” they
proclaimed.

Unsurprisingly, this amply subsidized global-warming
propaganda musical was canceled after only a three-week run last spring
at Manhattan’s Public Theatre. Even the reviewers couldn’t make
themselves love it.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

6 March, 2015

Looking back

Just Another Warmist Lie

by Viv Forbes

2015
is the make-or-break year for climate alarmism, with a crucial battle
planned for Paris in November. So we can expect regular bursts of global
warming propaganda. panic button

The year started on cue with a
breathless announcement from the US National Climate Data Centre: “2014
was Earth's warmest year on record” (their records start in 1880).The
Little Ice Age ended in about 1880.

Therefore it is no surprise
that global temperatures have generally risen since then. And it reveals
nothing about the cause of the warming.Moreover the announcement hides
more than it reveals.

Firstly the alleged new peak temperature is
just 0.04? higher than 2010. Who are they kidding? No weather recording
station can measure to that accuracy. Once the likely error bars are
added to the averaged data, the story changes to “recent global
temperatures remain flat”.Secondly, what does “average” mean?

Almost
every place on Earth has a different average temperature, and the
averages range from 34? to -58?, a range of 92?. With very large daily
and seasonal variations, an unevenly scattered and variable set of
temperature recording stations, plus frequent “adjustments” to the raw
figures, their calculated “global average” is probably a manipulated and
meaningless number.Trends are more important than spot values.

Harvard
historian of science Naomi Oreskes is best known to climate realists
for her 2010 screed Merchants of Doubt, but a short, obscure,
error-riddled essay she wrote as a chapter in the book How Well Do Facts
Travel? The Dissemination of Reliable Knowledge is more significant. In
it she examines the 1991 origin of the “skeptics are paid industry
shills” narrative found in a legendary set of “leaked Western Fuels
memos.”

Oreskes’ chapter is important because she interprets the
memos as industry’s plan for a vast national campaign using paid climate
scientists to create lasting public doubt about global warming. That’s
the same interpretation repeated ad nauseam by climate alarmists such as
Al Gore, Ross Gelbspan (1997’s The Heat Is On), and Canadian attack
website DeSmogBlog.

Appallingly, nobody in this parade of critics
ever fact-checked the memos, not even historian Oreskes. Critics
misinterpreted what they were looking at in the hundred-or-so pages of
“Western Fuels memos.” They cherry-picked pieces that made skeptics look
worst and patched them together into an assumption-laden fairy-tale.

According
to Russell Cook’s excellent Heartland Institute Report Merchants of
Smear, and numerous interviews with the “memo” sources, all the critics
had was a hodgepodge of e-mail exchanges from a loose coalition of 24
large and small electric utilities worried about a carbon tax bill in
Congress.

The fairy tale spinners focused only on emails from the
utilities’ coal suppliers. The coalition explored lobbying to raise
public concern about the impact of the tax, along with pointing out the
weaknesses in the claims humans were causing climate change, using
well-established skeptical scientists as spokesmen to balance the deluge
of alarmist publicity.

The “memos” were the everyday work
products of coalition members—including the Edison Electric Institute, a
large trade group of investor-owned utilities—filed away in no
particular order. EEI coordinated the most misinterpreted document, a
campaign proposal by opinion survey firm Cambridge Reports of
Massachusetts. The other “memos” included letters, meeting notices,
reports from a hired Washington public relations firm, sample ads from a
North Dakota direct mail firm, and similar items.

Innocuous Trade Association Demonized

Less
than one-third of the jumbled “memos” involved Western Fuels
Association. It’s ironic that they became known as the “Western Fuels
memos,” because WFA is just the opposite of what the alarmist critics
thought. It wasn’t a lobbying group but rather a nonprofit, member-owned
co-op serving consumer-owned rural electric cooperatives and other
public power systems. WFA manages mining and transportation of coal from
member-owned mines and buys additional coal in the open market, facts
printed on the inside cover of WFA’s annual reports.

The
coalition’s climate skeptics picked the semi-humorous acronym “ICE,” and
Cambridge Reports suggested several names to fit, including “Informed
Citizens for the Environment” and “Information Council for the
Environment.” Western Fuels used the latter.

The single most
misinterpreted page, “Strategy,” listed nine goals, topped by
“Reposition global warming as theory (not fact).” Critics
mischaracterized that as “orders from headquarters” to reposition the
public into believing global warming is not a fact. Al Gore even
featured it in ominous red letters spread across a frame of his movie An
Inconvenient Truth. Actually, it was merely a suggestion offered by
Cambridge Reports.

Coalition Dissolves

Even more
importantly, Western Fuels Association officials did not even read the
Cambridge Reports proposal, because they had already hired Simmons
Advertising of Grand Forks, North Dakota. They never saw the “Reposition
global warming as theory (not fact)” goal, and they say they wouldn’t
have used it if they had, because it was too abstract.

The
national campaign never happened, a three-city test run flopped, and the
coalition dissolved amid disagreements between skeptics and
pragmatists. In July 1991, coalition members went their separate ways.
Smaller ones, generally skeptics, chose to fight for sound science and
against new regulations, whereas big, investor-owned utilities abandoned
the science debate and chose to lobby to favorably influence
legislation.

Slanted Focus, Coverage

Of the original
“Western Fuels memos,” only fifty poorly scanned, frustratingly
incomplete images on a Greenpeace Investigations site are publicly
available today. So, where did Oreskes get the entire set?

She
claims she found them “in the archives of the American Meteorological
Society (AMS) in Washington, D.C.” and advises, “scholars wishing to
consult these materials should contact the AMS.”

AMS is actually
headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts It maintains a small Washington,
DC office for government affairs, but it has no archives. The AMS
archivist in Boston verified no such documents ever existed in the
society’s archives.

Oreskes said an “Anthony Socci” brought the
documents to her attention. The AMS archivist said Socci—a Senate
Commerce Committee staffer from 1991 to 1993 who managed hearings for
Sen. Al Gore—had been an AMS employee for a time, and likely had a
personal copy he made available to Oreskes.

How did Socci get the
documents? The most likely answer comes from a letter on EEI letterhead
dated May 6, 1991, showing the group’s global warming task force
strongly disparaged the skeptic campaign. Within a month, the memos were
circulating among environmentalists in Washington. The Sierra Club
forwarded a copy to the New York Times, mentioned in a July 8, 1991
article headlined, “Pro Coal Ad Campaign Disputes Warming Idea.”

A
noted historian, when asked for the simplest definition of history,
said, “History is what really happened.” That’s not what Oreskes wrote.

The
sustainable development model has long been doomed to failure, but the
Green Party is still in denial, argues John Foster in The Guardian

The
coming general election is the least predictable for many years. One
reason for this is the “green surge” – the Green party is
unprecedentedly polling at around 7%, with recent evidence suggesting
that it could affect the outcome in at least 18 seats and thus, in a
volatile situation, the overall result.

More people are now
members of the Greens than the Liberal Democrats. This is already a
major change to the political environment within which business has to
operate. Has the green agenda finally arrived in British politics?

The
Greens are arriving just as it is becoming evident that the
sustainability paradigm has failed. The issue of climate change
illustrates this failure. If we don’t keep average atmospheric
temperature to less than 2C above pre-industrial levels, we are (as all
credible experts now agree) in for dangerous and potentially disastrous
climate change.

Unless we are already well embarked on a
programme for drastic reductions worldwide, we won’t achieve them; as
the permanently crossed fingers of the international sustainability
establishment testify, we clearly have not.

This example
illustrates how impotent the sustainable development model always was.
Constraining present needs (or desires) to serve future needs could only
offer a toolkit of lead spanners, liable to bend under any real strain.
No wonder we still find the nuts and bolts of unsustainable living
stubbornly unshiftable.

Greens are perhaps as deep in denial
about climate change as those with more standard vested interests. This
can be encapsulated in the words of the Green Party member who said: it
can’t be too late to stop climate change, because if it was, how could
we find the energy to go on campaigning?

This logic is now coming
under breaking strain. Defending the idea that it can’t be too late,
from the knowledge that we have barely started, gives rise to
techno-fantasy. The Oxford geoengineering programme, for instance,
canvasses the introduction of sulphur dioxide particles into the upper
atmosphere to reflect away a proportion of incoming sunlight, or adding
nutrients to the oceans to increase draw-down of atmospheric carbon.

But
such projects belong to the realm of science fiction and, as even their
proponents tacitly recognise, merely continue the mindset which has
brought us to our present plight.

Since that mindset is doomed,
we are going to have to learn to live with post-sustainability. This
will be bleak. It means accepting that we face what a former UK
government chief scientist has called a “perfect storm” of food, water
and energy shortages worldwide, with all their consequences in terms of
attempted migrations, struggles for resources and associated conflict.
The only way to retrieve anything for human hope from this mess will be
to re-conceive emerging post-sustainability positively, as ‘post-
hubris’.

Hubris is overweening confidence in human ability to
control our surroundings and what happens to us. The modern project of
managing the natural world for human benefit, launched by the scientific
revolution and the Enlightenment, now stands revealed as a lethal form
of this failing. To have pointed this out is the green movement’s real
achievement hitherto.

This is now gaining wider recognition with
unexpected support for what could become a green-led recovery from
hubris. We see this in the contempt for all conventional politicians,
who promise betterment but fail to deliver.

Correspondingly,
there is a growing sense that our resilience lies in the strength of
both national and local culture, which further moves towards
multiculturalism can only subvert. A confused form of this awareness can
be seen in the UKIP phenomenon.

Closely related is recognition
of our need to recover solidarities of community, which neoliberal
capitalism under governments of the right and (vaguely) the left has
trashed. This explains the haemorrhaging of Labour support to the Greens
and nationalists on issues like transport, healthcare and welfare.

Post-hubristic
consciousness is clearly still inchoate and embraces many
contradictions – Scottish nationalists reject the UK but yearn for the
EU, many UKIP supporters resist the realities of climate change. The
need to rebuild what viable resilience we can is impossible to ignore.

Also
impossible to ignore is that these are all profoundly ecological
recognitions, of which the Greens should be natural trustees. Will they
rise to that responsibility?

One thing can confidently be
predicted about this general election, is it will cost the Greens an
heroic expenditure of effort for very minimal results in terms of seats
and parliamentary voice. Given excited expectations among a much larger
membership, disillusion will be all the more acute. Will it lead to a
reappraisal of strategy and realignment with new allies? For the
business community, as for the rest of us, much hangs on the answer.

Some
days ago I wrote about how German news weekly Der Spiegel had resorted
once again to catastrophe-hopping when it recently rolled out its print
edition whose front cover featured a burning planet caused by human
climate change.

Skeptics in Europe reacted harshly, but at the
same time dismiss the doomsday piece as a desperate sensationalism stunt
in a bid to stem its hemorrhage of readers.

Some criticism even
came from rather hefty figures in the climate scene. For example Swedish
professor Lennart Bengtsson, former IPCC climatologist and former head
of the German Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg.

Bengtsson
posted a commentary concerning the Spiegel doomsday piece at the
Swedish Anthropocene site here. He calls the alarmist views of book
author Naomi Klein, which Spiegel cited in its article: “not only wrong,
but also hopelessly naïve.”

Bengtsson, who has gravitated from
being an regular alarmist to a non-alarmist luke-warmer over the years,
thinks that the growing emission of greenhouse gases is a problem over
the long term, but that it is not an urgent problem. He writes there is
no scientific basis showing the weather has become more extreme.

The storms are not worse than before, and they will be fewer in a warmer climate as a result of the polar regions warming up.”

On
sea level Bengtsson writes that it is now rising at about 3 mm per
year, but has not accelerated over the past 23 years. It makes no sense
to rush and to make “hasty and inaccurate decisions“. He writes:

"The
reason for the increased emissions of carbon dioxide is the increasing
earth‘s population and the desire of all the poor to live a life that is
a little better and more hopeful, and perhaps someday even take a taxi
at any time – surely among some of Naomi Klein’s environmental sins.”

Bengtsson
calls the belief that a non-capitalist system can solve the earth’s
energy and environmental problems “completely naïve” and uninformed,
citing past failed experiments in socialism.

"If anyone ought to
be familiar with the costs needed to solve the problems left behind by
communist East Germany, it is Spiegel. The Elbe River was a dead river
at the time of the German reunification. Now, thanks to the capitalist
system, it has returned to life.”

As an example of a successful
approach to lower CO2, emissions, Bengtsson uses the United States: “In
fact, one of the few countries that has significantly reduced CO2
emissions are the United States, through its growing gas exploration!”

Bengtsson adds:

"The
only hope to solve the planet’s long-term environmental problems is via
the open and free society, not least of all by a socialist dictatorship
on a global scale. This at least Spiegel’s editors ought to know.”

Members of Congress send inquisitorial letters to universities, energy companies, even think tanks

By RICHARD S. LINDZEN

Research
in recent years has encouraged those of us who question the popular
alarm over allegedly man-made global warming. Actually, the move from
“global warming” to “climate change” indicated the silliness of this
issue. The climate has been changing since the Earth was formed. This
normal course is now taken to be evidence of doom.

Individuals
and organizations highly vested in disaster scenarios have relentlessly
attacked scientists and others who do not share their beliefs. The
attacks have taken a threatening turn.

As to the science itself,
it’s worth noting that all predictions of warming since the onset of the
last warming episode of 1978-98—which is the only period that the
United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) attempts
to attribute to carbon-dioxide emissions—have greatly exceeded what has
been observed. These observations support a much reduced and
essentially harmless climate response to increased atmospheric carbon
dioxide.

In addition, there is experimental support for the
increased importance of variations in solar radiation on climate and a
renewed awareness of the importance of natural unforced climate
variability that is largely absent in current climate models. There also
is observational evidence from several independent studies that the
so-called “water vapor feedback,” essential to amplifying the relatively
weak impact of carbon dioxide alone on Earth temperatures, is canceled
by cloud processes.

There are also claims that extreme
weather—hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, floods, you name it—may be due
to global warming. The data show no increase in the number or intensity
of such events. The IPCC itself acknowledges the lack of any evident
relation between extreme weather and climate, though allowing that with
sufficient effort some relation might be uncovered.

World leaders
proclaim that climate change is our greatest problem, demonizing carbon
dioxide. Yet atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide have been vastly
higher through most of Earth’s history. Climates both warmer and colder
than the present have coexisted with these higher levels.

Currently
elevated levels of carbon dioxide have contributed to increases in
agricultural productivity. Indeed, climatologists before the recent
global warming hysteria referred to warm periods as “climate optima.”
Yet world leaders are embarking on costly policies that have no capacity
to replace fossil fuels but enrich crony capitalists at public expense,
increasing costs for all, and restricting access to energy to the
world’s poorest populations that still lack access to electricity’s
immense benefits.

Billions of dollars have been poured into
studies supporting climate alarm, and trillions of dollars have been
involved in overthrowing the energy economy. So it is unsurprising that
great efforts have been made to ramp up hysteria, even as the case for
climate alarm is disintegrating.

The latest example began with an
article published in the New York Times on Feb. 22 about Willie Soon, a
scientist at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Mr. Soon
has, for over 25 years, argued for a primary role of solar variability
on climate. But as Greenpeace noted in 2011, Mr. Soon was, in small
measure, supported by fossil-fuel companies over a period of 10 years.

The
Times reintroduced this old material as news, arguing that Mr. Soon had
failed to list this support in a recent paper in Science Bulletin of
which he was one of four authors.

Two days later Arizona Rep.
Raul Grijalva, the ranking Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee,
used the Times article as the basis for a hunting expedition into
anything said, written and communicated by seven individuals — David
Legates, John Christy, Judith Curry, Robert Balling, Roger Pielke Jr.,
Steven Hayward and me— about testimony we gave to Congress or other
governmental bodies. We were selected solely on the basis of our
objections to alarmist claims about the climate.

In letters he
sent to the presidents of the universities employing us (although I have
been retired from MIT since 2013), Mr. Grijalva wanted all details of
all of our outside funding, and communications about this funding,
including “consulting fees, promotional considerations, speaking fees,
honoraria, travel expenses, salary, compensation and any other monies.”
Mr. Grijalva acknowledged the absence of any evidence but purportedly
wanted to know if accusations made against Mr. Soon about alleged
conflicts of interest or failure to disclose his funding sources in
science journals might not also apply to us.

Perhaps the most
bizarre letter concerned the University of Colorado’s Mr. Pielke. His
specialty is science policy, not science per se, and he supports
reductions in carbon emissions but finds no basis for associating
extreme weather with climate. Mr. Grijalva’s complaint is that Mr.
Pielke, in agreeing with the IPCC on extreme weather and climate,
contradicts the assertions of John Holdren, President Obama’s science
czar.

Mr. Grijalva’s letters convey an unstated but perfectly
clear threat: Research disputing alarm over the climate should cease
lest universities that employ such individuals incur massive
inconvenience and expense—and scientists holding such views should not
offer testimony to Congress.

After the Times article, Sens.
Edward Markey (D., Mass.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.) and Barbara
Boxer (D., Calif.) also sent letters to numerous energy companies,
industrial organizations and, strangely, many right-of-center think
tanks (including the Cato Institute, with which I have an association)
to unearth their alleged influence peddling.

The American
Meteorological Society responded with appropriate indignation at the
singling out of scientists for their scientific positions, as did many
individual scientists. On Monday, apparently reacting to criticism, Mr.
Grijalva conceded to the National Journal that his requests for
communications between the seven of us and our outside funders was
“overreach.”

Where all this will lead is still hard to tell. At
least Mr. Grijalva’s letters should help clarify for many the
essentially political nature of the alarms over the climate, and the
damage it is doing to science, the environment and the well-being of the
world’s poorest.

Climate
change could have positive economic spin-offs, a new government report
says. It's only one sentence in a vast bureaucratic document but
it is a sign of the times to see some realism creeping into officialdom

The
Intergenerational Report released on Thursday includes a chapter on
"managing the environment", which has been a feature of previous
versions of the five-yearly economic and budget update.

The report sets out the government's plan to reduce carbon pollution through its $2.55 billion Emissions Reduction Fund.

But
it also says "some economic effects may be beneficial". "Where
regions become warmer or wetter this may allow for increased
agricultural output - while others may be harmful," the report said.

"For
example, lower rainfall may reduce crop yields, or transport
infrastructure (such as roads, ports and rail networks) may become more
susceptible to damage from extreme weather events."

The report reinforces the government's aim to cut emissions by five per cent on 2000 levels by 2020.

But, despite the report being about Australia in the period to 2055, it does not discuss a possible new target.

"Australia
will meet its Kyoto target for 2020 and will join with the
international community to establish post-2020 targets with the aim of
reducing global greenhouse gas emissions," it said.

"The
international community has agreed to aim to keep global warming to a
less than two degrees celsius increase above pre-industrial climate
levels."

The intergenerational report produced by Labor in 2010
found that unmitigated climate change would leave Australian GDP in 2100
about eight per cent lower than the level it would be in the absence of
climate change.

Former Liberal treasurer Peter Costello's 2007
report concluded: "There does seem to be consensus around the fact that
significant levels of global warming imply losses in global GDP over the
longer term that should be factored into the policy choices made
today."

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

5 March, 2015

An Obama promise that has come true!

Watch him make the promise here. And people voted for him! The power of a dark skin in a nation brainwashed into guilt by the Left

In
contrast to the steep decline in the gasoline price index over the past
year (which led to a decline in the overall Consumer Price Index), the
seasonally adjusted electricity price index hit an all-time high in
January, according to data released last week by the Bureau of Labor
Statistics.

In January, the seasonally adjusted price index for
electricity was 212.290. That was up from 210.489 in December, which was
the record up until then. Before that, the high had been the 209.341
recorded in March of last year.

The annual electricity price index set a record in 2014 of 208.020 up from 200.750 in 2013.

In January, the average price for a kilowatthour (KWH) of electricity also hit an all-time high for that month of the year.

According
to BLS, a KWH of electricity cost an average of 13.8 cents in January
2015, which was less than the 14.3-cent cost in June, July and August of
2014 (and 14.1-cent cost of September 2014) but more than the average
cost of a KWH in any month—including the summer months—of 2013. In that
year, the average price of a KWH peaked at 13.7 cents in the months from
June to September.

The rise in the electricity price index ran
counter to the gasoline price index, the overall energy price index, and
the overall Consumer Price Index, all of which declined in January as
well as over the past twelve months.

“The gasoline decrease was
overwhelmingly the cause of the decline in the all items index, which
would have risen 0.1 percent had the gasoline index been unchanged,”
said BLS.

The BLS’s price indexes measure relative change in
prices against a baseline of 100. The seasonally adjusted monthly
electricity price index exceeded 100 between September and October of
1983, when it rose from 98.9 to 101.0.

Historically, increasing
electricity prices have not been inevitable in the United States. From
1913 to 1946, the electricity price index trended down from 45.5 to
26.6. By 1974, it was still only 44.1, which was less than it had been
in 1913.

After the collapse of Communism, global warming is the next great hope of the far Left -- in their hunger for global mastery

Interview summary

Lord
Christopher Monckton says the “climate change” issue is really a way to
gain control of the world. Lord Monckton, former award winning
journalist who was once an advisor to Margaret Thatcher, contends, “This
is a story that has been grossly, I mean grossly, oversold. They
have exaggerated beyond all reason.

Just this week, I’ve
had a major paper published in the Science Bulletin of the Chinese
Academy of Science which gives the reasons why they got it wrong.
We went into their wretched climate models and took them apart.
We’ve found what they did wrong, and we exposed it. The left have
gone ballistic.”

Lord Monckton goes on to say, “What seems to be
happening is the communist, in particular the hard left, have taken up
these climate cudgels in a very big way, and they are the ones that are
really driving this agenda. Why are they doing this? That is
the first question. The reason, of course, is they have long
wanted to set up what used to be called the socialist
international. It’s a single giant global communist tyranny.

Of course, you get Obama, whose father was communist. His
chief mentor was communist. His rhetoric is communist. He
has taken this up in a big way. The State of the Union Address was
really rather pathetic. . . . I never thought I’d see the United States
electing a communist as President.”

Lord Monckton also
points out, “These people are totalitarian. These are people who
want global government. They want to be part of a regime of total
control. . . . This is what the hard left has always wanted. It
was the same in Hitler’s Germany. . . .Now, you got the communist party
in the United States, but now they are calling it the Democrats.”

The
co-founder of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore, has made public statements
that say there is “no scientific proof” humans are the cause of global
warming. Lord Monckton, who knows him personally, says, “Patrick
Moore has made a very moving speech about how he tried to set up a
genuine environmental organization. Its intention was to make the
world a better place, to leave a smaller environmental footprint on the
world. . . . He is heartbroken. I can’t tell you how sad he is at
the perversion of the organization he founded.

Goofy
teenagers are giving it money and going around collecting money, not
realizing that what they are actually collecting money for is not an
environmental organization anymore. It is a communist front.
It is there solely to bring in a world government to put its people in
charge, using the environment just as Hitler used it as the excuse for
additional totalitarian control.

Let’s not forget, it was
Hitler who first founded the green movement and first used the
environmental movement, not for the basis for genuine concern about the
environment, but as a basis for getting control over every detail over
people’s lives so they couldn’t argue back. That’s what this is
really all about. . . . I get criticized all the time as to why I
don’t just stick to the science. I say somebody has to tell the
truth, not only about the science, but also about the politics.”

Lord
Monckton believes there is climate change, but he does not believe man
has anything to do with it. Lord Monckton says science will
ultimately back up that claim. Why the recent push on climate
change that is also called global warming? Lord Monckton says, “I
think they are panicking because they know that this process . . .
cannot be kept going for very much longer because . . . it’s been 25
years since the UN produces a report saying we were all doomed, and
since then, the rate of warming has been half of what they predicted and
well below their entire range of estimates.”

Also, former
Vice President Al Gore predicted the polar ice caps would be melted by
now. Just the opposite has happened, as Lord Monckton points out,
“If you took the Artic and the Antarctic together, global sea ice was
the greatest it’s been throughout the 35 years of the satellite
era. It is greater than it has ever been before.”

Lord Monckton closes by saying, “God Bless America, and in light of what’s to come, if we don’t stop it, God Bless us all.”

The
total ice cover of the Great Lakes is currently 88.3 percent, or 2.3
percentage points more than it was at the same time during last year’s
polar vortex, when 86 percent of the lakes’ surfaces were frozen solid,
according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The
ice accumulation is also much higher than the 51.4 percent long-term
average since 1973. However, it is still short of the record of 94.7
percent, which was set on Feb. 19, 1979.

Lakes Erie, Huron and
Superior are almost completely frozen over, according to NOAA’s Great
Lakes Surface Environmental Analysis (GLSEA). Three quarters of Lakes
Michigan and Ontario are also covered in ice.

Ice cover on the
Great Lakes currently runs from a high of 96.18 percent on Lake Huron to
a low of 71.16 percent on Lake Michigan, Lt. David B. Keith, public
affairs officer at the U.S. National/Naval Ice Center (NIC), told
CNSNews.com.

There
is so much ice on Lake Erie that the Arthur M. Anderson, a 767-foot
freighter, got stuck in it for five days late last month. The Coast
Guard ice breaker Bristol Bay also got stuck in the 8-to-10-foot thick
ice itself while on a mission to rescue the stranded freighter. Both
vessels were finally released by the Griffon, a Canadian Coast Guard ice
cutter.

Imagery from NOAA’s polar-orbiting satellite is used to
take daily readings of the surface temperatures of the Great Lakes. NIC
produces a twice-weekly overview of current conditions during the winter
months.

According to the National Weather Service’s 30-day
outlook for March, which was released on Feb. 28, below-average
temperatures are predicted in the eastern half of the United States this
month:

“The update to the March temperature outlook indicates an
increased probability of below-normal mean temperatures over a more
extensive area of the Eastern U.S. covering most regions east of the
Rocky Mountains with the exception of the Southeast.”

However, NOAA does not believe that the Great Lakes ice record set in 1979 will be broken this year.

"I'm
not expecting to break the record this year as we've got a ways to go
(record is 94.76%, sounds closer than it actually is) but we may still
see an increase of ice later this week with another cold push into the
upper Midwest,” said Brian Jackson, NOAA’s Great Lakes ice analyst.

“Our
maximum ice extent this year, so far, occurred on Saturday, Feb. 28,
when we hit 88.75%. This puts this year in 5th place on record (since
1972).

“I’ve
already said I’m happy to look at how we can increase pipeline
production for U.S. oil, but Keystone is for Canadian oil to send that
down to the Gulf. It bypasses the United States and is estimated to
create a little over 250, maybe 300 permanent jobs. We should be
focusing more broadly on American infrastructure for American jobs and
American producers, and that’s something that we very much support.” – President Obama, interview with WDAY of Fargo, N.D., Feb. 26, 2015

President
Obama, seeking to explain his veto of a bill that would have
leapfrogged the approval process for the Keystone XL pipeline, in an
interview with a North Dakota station repeated some false claims that
had previously earned him Pinocchios. Yet he managed to make his
statement even more misleading than before, suggesting the pipeline
would have no benefit for American producers at all.

The Fact
Checker obviously takes no position on the pipeline, and has repeatedly
skewered both sides for overinflated rhetoric. Yet the president’s
latest comments especially stand out. Let’s review the facts again.

The Facts

As
we have noted before, when the president says “it bypasses the United
States,” he leaves out a very important step. The crude oil would travel
to the Gulf Coast, where it would be refined into products such as
motor gasoline and diesel fuel (known as a distillate fuel in the
trade). Current trends suggest that only about half of that refined
product would be exported, and it could easily be lower.

A report
released in February by IHS Energy, which consults for energy
companies, concluded that “Canadian crude making its way to the USGC
[Gulf Coast] will likely be refined there, and most of the refined
products are likely to be consumed in the United States.” It added that
“for Gulf refineries, heavy bitumen blends from the oil sands are an
attractive substitute for declining offshore heavy crude supply from
Latin America.” It concluded that 70 percent of the refined product
would be consumed in the United States.

Enviromentalists dismiss
IHS as a biased source, but the analysis mirrors the conclusions of the
State Department’s final environmental impact statement on the Keystone
XL project. This is what is especially strange about Obama’s remarks, as
he appears to be purposely ignoring the findings of the lead Cabinet
agency on the issue.

“Comments were received throughout the
review process speculating that WCSB heavy crude oil supplies carried on
the proposed Project would pass through the United States and be loaded
onto vessels for ultimate sale in markets such as Asia,” the State
Department said. “As crude of foreign origin, Canadian crude is eligible
for crude export license as long as it is not commingled with domestic
crude. However, such an option appears unlikely to be economically
justified for any significant durable trade given transport costs and
market conditions.”

The report added:

“Once WCSB [Western
Canadian Sedimentary Basin] crude oil arrives at the Gulf Coast, Gulf
Coast refiners have a significant competitive advantage in processing it
compared to foreign refiners because the foreign refiners would have to
incur additional transportation charges to have the crude oil delivered
from the Gulf Coast to their location…. Gulf Coast refineries
have the potential to absorb volumes of WCSB crude that go well beyond
those that would be delivered via the proposed Project. On this basis,
the likelihood that WCSB crudes will be exported in volume from the Gulf
Coast is considered low.”

Finally, note that Obama said Keystone
was just for Canadian oil, and “we should be focusing on American
infrastructure for American jobs and American producers.” But actually,
Keystone would help U.S. oil producers in North Dakota and Montana.
TransCanada, the builder of the pipeline, has signed contracts to move
65,000 barrels a day from the Bakken area –and hopes to build that to
100,000. That’s nearly 10 percent of the region’s production.

The
Congressional Research Service in 2013 estimated that about 12 percent
of the pipeline’s capacity had been set aside for crude from the Bakken
region. Of course, delays in the Keystone project have sent oil
producers in search of other methods of transport, potentially making
this link less relevant, but the president can’t argue the project was
not proposed without U.S. producers in mind.

Moreover, as we have
noted before, U.S. companies control about 30 percent of the production
in Canada’s oil sands region. Thus, contrary to Obama’s suggestion, it
is not strictly Canadian.

We have poked fun at TransCanada for
suggesting the pipeline would reduce reliance on foreign energy — when
in fact Canada is a foreign country — but that does not give Obama
license to suggest there is no possible American benefit from the
pipeline.

(Incidentally, while the president spoke of 250 to 300
permanent jobs, the State Department report actually says 35. But this
is a construction project. How many construction projects result in very
many permanent jobs?)

The White House declined to provide an
on-the-record defense of the president’s statement. That certainly
suggests officials are unwilling to make a public case contradicting the
State Department findings.

The Pinocchio Test

When Obama
first started making the claim that the crude oil in the Keystone
pipeline would bypass the United States, we wavered between Three and
Four Pinocchios — and strongly suggested he take the time to review the
State Department report.

Clearly, the report remains unread.

The
president’s latest remarks pushes this assertion into the Four
Pinocchios column. If he disagrees with the State Department’s findings,
he should begin to make the case why it is wrong, rather than assert
the opposite, without any factual basis. Moreover, by telling North
Dakota listeners that the pipeline has no benefit for Americans, he is
again being misleading, given that producers in the region have signed
contracts to transport some of their production through the pipeline.

by JANET LEVY -- a BOOK REVIEW of "The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels" by Alex Epstein

In
the anti-fracking film Gasland, producer Josh Fox proclaims that the
process of extracting previously inaccessible oil and gas from shale
pollutes water supplies, increases the incidence of cancer and leads to
higher levels of seismic activity, despite ample contrary evidence. This
self-proclaimed environmental watchdog and anti-fracking crusader has
led extensive efforts to end or prevent fracking throughout the United
States by obfuscating the truth and stopping communities from reaping
the benefits of America's shale boom. Josh Fox and others like him are
uninterested in looking for improvements in fracking technology and
safety. Instead they seek to shut down shale exploration and other
fossil fuel extraction altogether.

In his recent book, The Moral
Case for Fossil Fuels, Alex Epstein challenges the ethical bias of
environmentalists who oppose fossil-fuel use and deftly argues that
fossil fuels have vastly improved the planet and the lives of its human
inhabitants. He contends that a human-centric moral value that supports
the well-being and prosperity of human beings ranks on a higher ethical
plain than the utopian, environmentalist ideal of a "wild" earth or
environment absent little or no human impact. Epstein's moral position
is that man should serve human beings, not nature, and that it is
wrong-headed and misguided to view man as a destructive force meriting
punishment for cultivating the environment for his benefit. With fossil
fuels, limiting their use creates reduced economic prosperity, higher
levels of human starvation, lower life expectancies and higher rates of
infant mortality.

To environmentalists, any transformation of
nature is inherently bad and man bears primary responsibility for
negatively impacting nature in the quest to develop and utilize
resources. Epstein counters this view with the assertion that man's very
survival depends on transforming the environment and that the goal
should be responsible resource use, not lack of human impact. Fossil
fuel use should be embraced for the many ways they improve our lives, he
contends.

To counter the fallacy of environmental harm from
fossil use, Epstein reviews past predictions of resource depletion and
planetary destruction that never came to pass. In 1972, the Club of Rome
and ecologist Paul Ehrlich, then still a Stanford University faculty
member, declared that we would run out of oil, natural gas, and certain
essential minerals by 1993. In 1970, Life magazine reported that within a
decade that city dwellers would need to wear gas masks to survive
rampant air pollution, that sunlight reaching the earth would be greatly
diminished and that hundreds of thousands of people would die. Of
course, none of these dire predictions came to pass and our air and
water are cleaner than ever.

Epstein applauds fossil fuels' many
benefits in developed countries and contrasts impoverished societies
with their unreliable and low levels of fossil-fuel resources and
utilization and the resulting poor sanitation, rampant disease, limited
food production, and minimal transportation of goods. A poignant example
is a hospital in Gambia, where infant mortality rates are extremely
high due to lack of electric power for ultrasound machines to diagnose
in-utero problems and incubators to save the lives of premature babies.

Epstein
cites data showing that the more fossil fuels are used, the fewer
deaths occur from droughts, floods, storms and other climate-related
disasters. He compares undeveloped nations with low fossil-fuel use to
developed nations and concludes that the latter have higher levels of
safety because of better transportation for relief efforts, sturdier
buildings and higher agricultural yields. Fossil fuels have enabled us
to turn unusable water into usable water and eradicate disease through
mass production of pharmaceuticals and vaccines and improved sanitation
facilities. Plus, fossil fuels give us the opportunity to move to other
climates or change our existing environment to be safe and comfortable
despite climate challenges. The machines that run on fossil fuels have
transformed the hazardous natural environment to a healthier human
environment, Epstein says.

The author also examines the argument
that renewable resources can augment or replace fossil fuels entirely.
He notes, first, that not a single, independent free-standing wind or
solar power plant exists anywhere in the world. He then delineates the
problems with renewable energy. Compared to fossil fuels which are
cheap, plentiful, reliable, easily extracted and naturally stored,
renewable energies, solar and wind, are not plentiful, accounting for
under two percent of our energy usage; cannot be naturally stored; and
are not reliable because they depend on the vagaries of weather. While
fossil fuels are intrinsically concentrated, solar power is diffused and
requires many additional resources to concentrate its energy. Plus, it
relies on fossil fuel-powered backup systems for off-peak periods.

Although
wind farms release no emissions, rotating turbines kill and injure more
than a million birds and bats annually and cause pollution from
extraction of rare-earth minerals needed to manufacture the turbines.
Both wind and solar power require extensive land use and aesthetically
degrade the landscape.

Further, wind-energy production causes
noise that many find disturbing. Epstein concludes that fossil fuel
exploration actually impacts the environment far less than the
renewables favored by environmentalists.

Today, dire
predictions exist that CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels will
cause climate catastrophe within a few decades. The truth, Epstein
writes, is that, although significant warming has not occurred for a few
decades, humans actually thrive with warmer temperatures and plant life
proliferates. Both conditions led to drops in climate-related deaths in
the past, Epstein says, citing data to back up his claims from the UN
Environment Programme's, Center for Research on the Epidemiology of
Disasters, Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (CRED/OFDA).

Amidst
the hysteria surrounding claims of global warming and campaigns to stop
fossil fuel use, the question should be raised, "What ultimately
benefits human life?" Far from being a danger to the planet, fossil
fuels have vastly improved the quality of human life. Our real concerns
should be about policies based on unsubstantiated and fallacious claims
that would ultimately restrict our use of traditional energy resources
that have served us so well. Ultimately, we should focus on how to
continue improving the planet for human beings and not on saving the
planet from human beings

ALL oil producing nations are probably cursing American ingenuity at the moment

A socialist president who still seems to like his pomp and circumstance

Venezuela
is not mincing words with a new exhibition titled "F---ing Fracking"
that denounces the environmental toll of hydraulic fracturing in the
United States.

"Today at 4pm .... Inauguration of the educational
exhibit #FuckingFracking ... Don't miss it," ruling Socialist Party
official Ernesto Villegas said on Twitter.

The event features
speeches by an economist and oil expert, and will wrap up with a play,
according to a half-page advertisement in newspaper Ultimas Noticias.
The ad depicts a fractured heart dripping with black oil with dried up
leaves coming from the arteries.

President Nicolas Maduro has for
months alleged that the United States is deliberately flooding the
market with shale oil to sink prices and destabilize his OPEC nation, as
well as Russia.

The decline in oil prices has slammed his
increasingly cash-strapped and unpopular government in the midst of a
deep recession and ahead of important parliamentary elections.

Hydraulic
fracturing, or fracking, involves injecting water and chemicals deep
underground to break up rock and release oil and gas.

Environmental
groups have expressed concern about risks linked to the process, such
as chemical leaks into groundwater and disposal of waste water produced
in the process.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

4 March, 2015

Disproving the second law of Thermodynamics??

A recent study highlighted earlier on this site,
claimed to have recorded the signature of global warming cum climate
change cum climate disruption via the re-radiated energy coming from
atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). From it I quote the following
pertinent sections:

"They say it confirms the science of climate
change and the amount of heat-trapping previously blamed on carbon
dioxide. 'We see, for the first time in the field, the
amplification of the greenhouse effect because there's more CO2 in the
atmosphere to absorb what the Earth emits in response to incoming solar
radiation,' said Daniel Feldman, a scientist in Berkeley Lab's Earth
Sciences Division and lead author of the Nature paper.

'Numerous
studies show rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations, but our study
provides the critical link between those concentrations and the addition
of energy to the system, or the greenhouse effect,' Feldman adds.
He said no one before had quite looked in the atmosphere for this type
of specific proof of climate change."

There you have it, they have disproved the second law of TD in one easy session without further ado!

The
authors seem not concerned that amplification and the addition of
energy require new energy, which they claim comes off atmospheric CO2.
If engineers are made aware of this extraordinary property of CO2 they
will surely be able to design equipment to capture and double the
available energy output. If it were true then CO2 would be used in
industry as an energy source, which of course it isn't. But it is widely
used as a COOLANT, with new applications being researched right now -
e.g. here

CO2 does indeed cause more cooling, although that is by only a tiny amount, but it's all that CO2 can do. See here

A
scientific fact is that neither the greenhouse effect nor any climate
forcing parameter exist in the open to space atmosphere in which we all
live, despite all that you read. Both require energy or create energy
out of thin air, literally, see the K&T earth energy budget, where
the atmosphere is depicted as source of energy with even more power than
the sun itself.

A communication from Hans Schreuder of Sky Dragon fame. The "addition of energy to the system" is certainly a very strange claim

'The
Associated Press is recycling more than century old Antarctica ice
sheet melt and sea level rise fears. Reporter Seth Borenstein is
not the first one to hype these same Antarctica melt fears. Virtually
the exact same claims and hype were reported in 2014, 1990, 1979, 1922
and 1901!

1979 NYT: “Boats could be launched from
the bottom of the steps of the Capitol’ in DC–‘Experts Tell How
Antarctic’s Ice Could Cause Widespread Floods - Mushy Ice Beneath
Sheet’]

1922: 'Mountain after mountain of [Antarctic] ice will
fall into the sea, be swept northwards by the currents, and melt, thus
bringing about, but at a much more rapid rate, the threatened inundation
of the land by the rising of the sea to its ancient level.' - The Mail
Adelaide, SA - April 29, 1922

1901: ‘London On The Border
of Destruction’: ‘To Be Wiped Out By A Huge Wave’ - Queanbeyan Age –
August 10, 1901 - Excerpt: ‘Geologists believe that this great ice
sucker has reached the stage of perfection when it (Antarctica) will,
break up again, letting loose all the waters of its auction over the two
hemispheres, and completely flooding the low-lying lands of Europe,
Asia, and North America.'

The Associated Press and Seth
Borenstein are at it again. The article by Seth Borenstein and Luis
Andres Henao titled ‘Glacial Melting In Antarctica Makes Continent The
‘Ground Zero Of Global Climate Change’‘ was published on February 27,
2014.

The AP left out contrary peer-reviewed studies,
inconvenient data and trends that counter the articles ‘worse than we
thought’ narrative. The AP paints an erroneous picture of potential sea
level rise, volcanic causes of any melting and the current state of
Antarctica and the geologic history of the continent.

Why did the
AP not include any ice specialists with differing views? See: Prominent
Scientist Dissents: Renowned glaciologist declares global warming is
‘going to be a big plus’ – Fears ‘Frightening’ Cooling – Warns
scientists are ‘prostituting their science’ – Dr. Hughes is an
internationally renowned glaciologist who pioneered many of the modern
ideas currently under study in the field.’ Dr. Hughes has travelled to
the Arctic ten times and the Antarctic thirteen times since 1968, mostly
as the principal investigator of NSF-funded glaciological research.

Of
course this was no surprising given the article was co-written by Seth
Borenstein who’s recent reporting on ‘hottest year’ claims had to be
corrected. See: AP ‘clarifies’ ‘hottest year’ claims: ‘Kudos to Marc
Morano for keeping the heat (heh) on about this’

AP’s Seth
Borenstein at it again! Claims ‘global warming means more Antarctic ice’
— Meet the new consensus, the opposite of the old consensus

Borenstein
has a long history of promoting global warming fears at the expense of
journalistic ethics. See: ‘Long sad history of AP reporter Seth
Borenstein’s woeful global warming reporting’ More on Borenstein here.

A
new study published in Nature Plants shows that hungry, plant-eating
insects may limit the ability of forests to take up elevated levels of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, reducing their capacity to slow
human-driven climate change.

The finding is significant because
climate change models typically fail to consider changes in the
activities of insects in the ecosystem, says Richard Lindroth, a
professor of ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the
leader of the study. The research suggests it's time to add insects to
the models.

Carbon dioxide typically makes plants grow faster and
makes them more efficient in how they use nutrients. But the amount of
damage caused by leaf-munching bugs in the study nearly doubled under
high carbon dioxide conditions, leading to an estimated 70g of
carbon-sequestering biomass lost per meter squared per year.

"This
is the first time, at this scale, that insects have been shown to
compromise the ability of forests to take up carbon dioxide," Lindroth
says.

In addition, as feeding increased, more nutrients moved
from the canopy to the forest floor in the form of insect fecal material
and chewed-on leaf scraps, mixing into the soil and likely altering the
nutrient profile of the forest.

"Insects are munching on leaves
and they're pooping out remnants, so they are changing the timing of
nutrient cycling as well as the quality," Lindroth says.

John
Couture, a former graduate student in Lindroth's lab and the lead author
of the study, spent three years with his team studying the impact of
elevated carbon dioxide alone, elevated ozone (which is highly toxic to
plants) alone, and elevated levels of both gases combined on stands of
aspen and birch growing in what was once one of the largest simulated
ecosystems in the world, the Aspen Free-Air Carbon dioxide and ozone
Enrichment (Aspen FACE) experiment located near Rhinelander, Wisconsin.

Unlike
a greenhouse or atmospheric chamber, the FACE site (now decommissioned)
was a massive outdoor experimental area that allowed trees to grow
under natural conditions, like natural soil, sunlight, and rainfall. The
only artificial conditions were those that were experimentally
manipulated.

The site consisted of a dozen stands of trees
growing in 30 meter diameter plots, surrounded by a network of PVC pipes
designed to vent gases into the environment around them.

They
were exposed to carbon dioxide and ozone at levels predicted for the
year 2050, although Lindroth says the 560 parts-per-million carbon
dioxide level studied is probably too low.

The trees were planted
as saplings in the mid-1990s and by the time Couture collected data for
the study from 2006 though 2008, they had grown to resemble any number
of the disturbed forest stands found throughout Wisconsin.

Couture
and his team walked through each site, clipping leaves from the canopy
using scissors at the end of pruner poles or from scaffolding near the
top of the canopy. They also set out frass baskets -- laundry baskets
lined with sheets -- to collect scraps of leaves dropped by messy,
munching caterpillars and other bugs dining in the canopy, and to
collect their fecal droppings.

Tens of thousands of leaves and
countless frass baskets later, Couture measured the amount of leaf area
consumed by the insects in each plot and sifted through the frass and
food droppings in the baskets to assess just how much eating the bugs
were doing, to measure the amount of nutrients leaving the trees via
their droppings, and to assess the loss of tree biomass.

Why
insects would do more munching in a carbon dioxide rich forest is in
part a matter of chemistry. Because carbon dioxide is a limiting
resource for plant growth, high levels of the gas change the way trees
use other resources, like nitrogen, typically leading to less nutritious
plants.

"It's like a slice of Wonder Bread versus a slice of
high density, protein-rich bakery bread; there's a lot more protein in
the bakery bread than the white bread," says Couture. "Insects have a
base level of nutrients they need in order to grow and to reach that,
they can choose either to eat higher-nutrient food -- unfortunately,
insects don't always have that choice -- or to eat more."

Overall,
the team found high ozone plots were less hospitable to insects,
reducing their munching behavior and leading to less biomass loss.

With
the findings, the researchers created models allowing them to predict
what could happen in forests under changing environmental conditions.

"The
big question is, will northern forests grow faster under elevated
carbon dioxide?" says Lindroth. "Carbon dioxide is a substrate for
photosynthesis. It gets converted into sugars, which then become plant
biomass. Will trees take up more carbon dioxide and thus help reduce its
increase in the atmosphere?"

As humans continue to contribute
more carbon dioxide to Earth's atmosphere, the answer should be yes as
trees act as sponges for the greenhouse gas. But it turns out, very
hungry caterpillars and their bug brethren -- in their own quest for
food in an elevated carbon dioxide environment -- may limit that growth
and reduce the capacity of forests to slow climate warming.

UPDATE:
Craig Idso has emailed some preliminary comments on the above
claims. He notes the powerful point that, despite all the cries of
doom from Warmists, the earth is steadily greening -- as one would
expect from increased atmospheric CO2. Those caterpillars might
have to munch harder! Craig's comments below:

While I
have not seen the paper discussed in this press release, I would not be
concerned about the headline of this paper. There are numerous
counter papers showing the opposite is more likely to be true, some from
THE VERY SAME FACE LOCATION! The devil is always in the details
and I suspect it may have been related to their experimental
design.

Coincidentally, I am just finishing a manuscript
that will be submitted to a journal that discusses this very same topic
in a section of the paper, and again, the results are overwhelmingly in
the other direction where elevated CO2 REDUCES herbivore attack damage.

The
net greening observed by satellites is a combination of several
factors, including rising CO2, temperature, precipitation,
nitrogen fertilization, policy (e.g., afforestation), etc. I also
discuss this in my forthcoming paper.

Regardless of the causes,
the important point in the matter is the fact that despite all of the
many real and imagined assaults on vegetation over the past several
decades from forest fires, droughts, floods, deforestation, insect
outbreaks, and the “dreaded” rise in temperature and CO2 concentrations,
which the alarmists claim should be destroying nature, on the whole,
there has been a net greening. And that is a very powerful point
that must be made again, again, and again.

UK: Forget MPs and 'cabs for hire’ – the green lobby is already at the wheel

It
was scarcely believable that Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Jack Straw should
have been so shameless and so naive. Both were caught out by exactly the
same trick that, five years ago, led to Stephen Byers happily admitting
to a carefully placed Dispatches briefcase that, when it came to “cash
for access”, he was “like a cab for hire”. But at least those former
ministers were only touting for thousands of pounds a day after they had
left their positions of direct power and influence over government
policy. What, then, are we to make of those politicians who receive
astonishingly lavish rewards from firms engaged in “renewable energy”
when they are still in a position to influence government policy, or
have only just stepped down from having responsibility for it?

Last
week I referred to the speed with which Charles Hendry MP switched from
being minister of state for energy and climate change to the
chairmanship of Forewind Ltd. That, you may recall, is the consortium to
which his old ministry has just given the go-ahead to build the world’s
largest offshore wind farm, which in its first 10 years of operation is
likely to receive some £9 billion in public subsidies. Mr Hendry, we
see from his declarations of interest, last year earned £48,000 from
Forewind, at up to £1,000 an hour; and also earns £60,000 a year from a
company called Bombo, which hopes to build an “interconnector” to bring
renewable energy to Britain from Iceland.

He, of course, replaced
Lord Deben (aka John Gummer), who was persuaded to resign from Forewind
when he was appointed chairman of the “independent” Climate Change
Committee, on which the Government relies for advice on its energy
policy. But he still, for a while, managed to retain his directorship of
Veolia, a company which hopes to make a fortune from connecting wind
farms to the grid.

Then, of course, there was the controversial
case of Tim Yeo MP, who long served as chairman of the also supposedly
“independent” select committee on energy and climate change, despite
earning £200,000 a year from various renewable and “low carbon” energy
firms. These included his directorship of Eurotunnel, which plans a new
interconnector to bring French electricity to Britain, specifically to
provide back-up for our unreliable wind farms.

Mr Yeo eventually
had to step aside as chairman after being allegedly caught on video
admitting to having “coached” an employee of a solar energy firm in
which he had an interest on how to handle questions from his own
committee. But he was cleared by the Commons standards watchdog, and
still remains on this hugely influential committee.

These men had
no need to become “cabs for hire”. They have been able to cruise, all
above board, in that strange twilight zone between positions of
influence and the greatest public subsidy bonanza Britain has ever seen

Yes,
climate really does change, running hot and cold with mainstream media
news cycles. Just one week after the New York Times showcased a Feb. 21
hatchet piece on Dr. Willie Soon, a man-made climate alarm doubter at
the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics “who claims that
variations in the sun’s energy can largely explain recent global
warming”, its front page Feb. 27 piece was far more chilling.

Headlined
“28 Days on Ice” and illustrated with dramatic ice and snow scenes, the
later feature indicates that Dr. Soon along with other skeptical
scientists may have very good reasons to doubt that any crisis exists
after all. As the subtitle states, “From the Hudson to La Guardia
Airport, this February may be New York’s coldest since 1934, the
National Weather Service Says.”

Before I go any further with
this, let me be very clear that neither I nor anyone I know doubts that
climate changes. This has been going on throughout our planet’s history —
beginning long before the Industrial Revolution introduced smokestacks
and SUVs.

Let’s also recognize a big difference between local
and ever-changing short-term weather events and regional/global climate
shifts characterized over at least a three decade long period.
Accordingly, weather changes occurring during a single season or even
over a few years in one region don’t validate global climate trending
one way or another, much less any measurable human influences.

Consider,
for example, that Icelandic Vikings raised livestock in grasslands on
Greenland’s southwestern coast as recently as 1,000 years ago. These
Norse settlements were then abandoned by about 1350 — after temperatures
dropped. Temperatures dropped dramatically again in the middle of the
16th century. The end of this time witnessed brutal winter temperatures
suffered by Washington’s troops at Valley Forge in 1777-78, and
Napoleon’s bitterly cold retreat from Russia in 1812.

Although
temperatures and weather conditions have been generally mild over about
the past 150 years, the past century has witnessed two periods of
warming. The first occurred between 1910 and 1945 when CO2 levels were
relatively low, compared with now.

The second warming which
followed a full climate cycle cool-down began in 1975. Global mean
temperatures rose at quite a constant rate until 1998, a strong Pacific
Ocean El Niño year. Satellite records show that since then, and despite
rising atmospheric CO2 levels, temperatures have been statistically flat
over the past 18 years and counting.

Consider that less than a
half-climate cycle after the planet had experienced a full cooling
cycle, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Al
Gore’s minions already determined that human fossil-fueled CO2 emissions
had put the world at tipping point crisis. Then, after Mother Nature
intervened to suggest otherwise, the story changed. Global warming not
only became re-termed climate change — now it even caused global
cooling. And yes, as a matter of fact, U.S. winters have been getting
colder over the past 20 years.

Still, according to the IPCC,
“Milder winter temperatures will decrease heavy snowstorms.” As recently
as last month, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina
McCarthy teamed with the Aspen Skiing Co. and a pair of Olympic
snowboarders at the "X Games" to put out the message that reduced snow
due to climate change would ruin the ski industry. Yet according to a
snow report website, “Current snowpack levels are at 165 percent of
average” for Aspen.

On the other hand, haven’t global warming
activists been warning us that since warmer air adds more moisture, snow
storms will become worse? As the Center for American Progress headed by
former Obama White House adviser/Clean Power Plan proponent John
Podesta claimed, “climate change may have affected the [recent Boston]
snow storm — may have made it more likely, may have made it worse
than it would have been without so much greenhouse gas in the
atmosphere.” Incidentally, this very same John Podesta will most likely
head Hillary’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Besides, given that
U.S. winter temperatures are actually colder, how does this warmist
argument explain record snow and ice? At the same time that Connecticut
experienced the coldest February in recorded history, nearby Boston
amassed a near record 101.8 inches of snow.

Meanwhile, ice
breakers had to open pathways through the Hudson River to keep ships
moving. New England lobster boats became frozen in ports for weeks. And
on Jan. 27, Canadian adventurer Will Gadd, using ice picks, became the
first person ever to scale Niagara Falls which had frozen solid.

So
if some of us have come to suspect that we’re witnessing a feverish
snow job, does this really qualify us as climate change deniers? Golly,
this is all so confusing. It’s enough to give anyone attempting to keep
track of the changing story cold sweats.

This
post will serve as a running update on the so-called "investigation" of
my research on disasters and climate change at the University of
Colorado. I will update it as warranted, with newer stuff at the top.
Pointers and tips welcome in the comments.

Updates

Rep. Grivalja has walked back his requests, according to Ben Geman at
the National Journal: Climate Letters Went Too Far. Since Rep. Geman
already has complete access to all my financial COI disclosures, I guess
we now know that the letter was an unnecessary stunt designed to smear.
Nice.

Mark Steyn asks
why no reporters appear to be interested in the fact that an anonymous
person had forewarning of Rep. Grivalja's "investigation" and used a
fake email account from a Russian server to taunt those who would later
receive letters from the Congressman. Bizarre to be sure, and if I
hadn't seen the taunting email in advance I might not have believed it.
But as I've said, nothing surprises me in the climate debate anymore.

To believe that Rep. Grijalva's "investigation" has merit, you have to
believe either (a) in a shadowy conspiracy of fossil fuel interests
funneling me (and others) money under the table to produce certain
research results and testimony, which have somehow mysteriously passed
peer review and been accepted by the IPCC, or (b) there is no such
conspiracy, but I (and others) need to be falsely accused and smeared in
order to remove us from the debate. Tin foil hat or unethical
campaigner? Not a great choice.

Several
reporters have asked me why I testify before Congress if I know that my
results will be used by Republicans. Aside from the interesting framing
of this question, I have written on my views of providing testimony here
in PDF (following the testimony that I am now being investigated for)
and please take careful note of the "To Avoid Any Confusion" bullets on
p. 2 of my testimony here in PDF.

Original bullet points

This week I have been invited to do various interviews for print/online
and radio. I'll update here when these are available and I have more
details.

9 News in Denver had a excellent story, shown in the video above and online here.

For those interested in my actual research on climate please head over
to this summary in the final post at my climate blog, The Climate Fix.

A group called the Energy & Environment Legal Group has filed state
freedom of information act requests modeled on the Rep. Grijalva letter
with 4 universities (Colorado, Arizona, Delaware, Georgia Tech)
requesting funding information from 5 researchers. This is obviously a
retaliatory act, legitimized by Rep. Grijalva's campaign. It is just as
wrong-headed.

Here in PDF is that strongly
worded letter from the American Meteorological Society to Representative
Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) warning that he is sending "a chilling message" to
all researchers.

Yesterday I had a nice chat
with Representative Jared Polis (D-CO) who represents my district here
in Boulder. What we said will stay between us, but it was very a
positive conversation.

Also yesterday @EricHolthaus -
a widely read scientist and climate activist - taunted me with the
following bizarre Tweet: "It’s getting harder and harder for
@RogerPielkeJr to remain relevant." Upon later learning that I'm no
longer doing climate change research Holthaus Tweeted that his earlier
taunt was no longer relevant. Great evidence that a lot of this is about
eliminating unwelcomed voices in the debate.

At The
Breakthrough Institute, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus take the
high road and argue that political intimidation of academics in
unacceptable, defending both me and Michael Mann.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

3 March, 2015

Just When You Thought Scientists Couldn’t Possibly Get Any Stupider

Three years ago, ingenious scientists predicted that DC cherry trees would bloom in February

I
came across a chapter in Hubert Lamb's "Climate, History and the Modern
World", which has more than a bit of topical relevance.

We are
all well aware of the extremely cold winters in the eastern half of the
States, both this year and last. This has coincided with warm winters in
the west, the sort of extreme weather which warmists would like to
blame on "climate change".

Well it turns out that they had the
same weather patterns in the 1850's and 60's, and the reason was just
the same - a meridional jet stream.

HH Lamb - Page 253

Lamb
believed that this meridionality was actually more common during the
Little Ice Age, and there is plenty of evidence of the same phenomenon
during the cooling period of the 1960's and 70's.

Is the latest
incarnation of this just weather, or an indication of a return to a
colder era? Either way, it won't stop junk scientists blaming it on
"global warming".

Below
is part of a blurb from "Newsweak" trying to drum up interest in the
cinematic Kenner/Oreskes attack on climate skeptics. It's been out
for a while now but seems to have been a box-office flop. I have
said all I want to say about it before so will refer readers back to that

In
Merchants of Doubt, their 2010 book that vivisects bad science and
industrial cynicism, science historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway
decried the uneven battle for the popular imagination fought, on one
side, by scientists ill-equipped for high-volume cable-TV tussles and,
on the other, by the "well-financed contrarians" bent on dismantling
whatever lab results, peer-reviewed theories and settled science might
lead to even the most benign corporate regulations.

The authors
unraveled the deny-and-obfuscate tactics concocted in the 1950s by Mad
Men and Big Tobacco to cloud understanding of what even the
proto-mainstream media was beginning to grasp. "Cancer by the Carton,"
read a 1953 headline in Reader's Digest. "Doubt," countered a public
relations memo exhumed decades later from Big Tobacco's yellowed files,
"is our product."

And doubt, argued Oreskes and Conway, became
the mantra for purveyors of acid rain, ozone holes and, most
significant, global warming. Keep the cigarettes burning, the CO2
combusting and the profits flowing for as long as possible.

Joining
the fray is filmmaker Robert Kenner, whose surprisingly rollicking
screen adaptation of Merchants of Doubt opens March 6 in New York and
Los Angeles. It's a worthy follow-up to his 2008 Oscar-nominated Food,
Inc., which arrived when Americans were primed to point fat fingers at
Big Agra. This time, Doubt lands amid a national debate over
science-legit, pseudo or just plain bad-that intensifies with every foot
of Boston snow or new case of Disneyland measles.

Along with
corporate greed and Madison Avenue chicanery, Kenner's film exposes a
devoted and long-lived cadre of scientists (and their philosophical
descendants) who established their careers during the A-bomb era and the
Cold War's Big Science rivalries. Anti-communist ideologues,
well-trained and often brilliant scientists such as physicists S. Fred
Singer and the late Frederick Seitz saw (and see) corporate regulation
as a pathway to socialism, an endgame more fearsome than any secondhand
smoke or patchy ozone.

The
sale of halogen bulbs which are used in millions of homes could be
banned as early as next year as part of the EU's energy-saving
drive. It follows the prohibition of traditional incandescent
bulbs, which have been phased out in an effort to cut greenhouse gas
emissions.

Millions of halogen bulbs are sold in Britain every
year, often for use in kitchen and bathroom spotlights. Any ban could
consequently cause enormous inconvenience.

The European
Commission and green campaigners say halogens are not much more
efficient than traditional bulbs so should be replaced by energy-saving
compact fluorescent bulbs - known as CFLs - and LEDs.

Yet these
alternatives can be as much as 15 times more expensive. There is the
additional problem that some LEDs do not work with the dimmer switches
and wiring circuits currently used by halogen bulbs, while CFLs can take
up to five minutes to reach full brightness.

The EC is due to
hold a vote on the issue in April, when it could agree to go ahead with
the proposed 2016 ban or push back the date to 2018.

Consumer
group Which? argued there are good reasons for a delay. A spokesman
said: `Half of Which? members still have halogen bulbs in their home and
more than two in five have halogen spotlights. Delaying the ban until
2018 would allow more time for some of the compatibility and user issues
to be resolved.'

And a campaign group of manufacturers called
LightingEurope is demanding any ban on halogens is delayed until 2020 at
the earliest, in order to minimise the impact on consumers and the
industry.

The group's secretary general, Diederik de Stoppelaar,
said: `A phase-out before 2020 is going to be costly and inconvenient to
consumers. The industry supports the change to more energy efficient
lighting... however, an earlier date does not allow for alternative
developing technologies to be widely available.'

But Which? added
that despite the inconvenience, there are some positives to switching.
The new bulbs last longer and, because they are more energy efficient,
they will cut electricity bills over time.

Typically, halogens
use 10 per cent less energy than incandescent bulbs, while CFLs use
60-80 per cent less and LEDs up to 90 per cent less. LED lights are so
efficient that a 5-watt bulb is, in theory, equivalent to a 35-watt
halogen.

But while a typical 35-watt halogen spotlight costs about œ1, a 5-watt LED can be anything from œ5 to œ15.

The managing director of British lighting company BLT Direct, Steven Ellwood, supports the 2016 ban.

He
said: `We understand the concerns of experts who want to delay the ban
in order to iron out some issues. [But] implementing the ban sooner
rather than later would see plenty of benefits for consumers, not to
mention the environment.'

Other advocates of the 2016 deadline
argue that the energy savings for Britain as a whole could be so large
that it would eliminate the risk of black-outs caused by the closure of
old and run-down power stations.

One analysis suggests that if
all 27 million homes reduced their need for lighting by 100 watts on
winter evenings, this would cut peak energy demand by 5 per cent.

ISIL
and other Islamist jihad movements continue to round up and silence all
who oppose them or refuse to convert to their extreme religious tenets.
They are inspiring thousands to join them. Their intolerance, vicious
tactics and growing power seem to have inspired others, as well.

After
years of claiming the science is settled and unprecedented manmade
catastrophes are occurring right now, Climate Crisis, Inc. is
increasingly desperate. Polls put climate change at the bottom of every
list of public concerns. China and India refuse to cut energy production
or emissions. Real-world weather and climate totally contradict their
dire models and forecasts. Expensive, subsidized, environmentally
harmful renewable energy makes little sense in world freshly awash in
cheap, accessible oil, gas and coal.

Perhaps worse, Congress is
in Republican control, and in 23 months the White House and Executive
Branch could also shift dramatically away from the
Freezing-Jobless-in-the-Dark Side of the Force.

Climate Crisis
industrialists are also fed up with constant carping, criticism and
questions from growing numbers of experts who will not kowtow to their
End of Days theology. Once seemingly near, their dream of ruling a
hydrocarbon-free world of "sustainably" lower living standards become
more remote every week. Extremist factions had dreamed of a global
climatist caliphate and want vengeance.

So borrowing from Barack
Obama and Hillary Clinton mentor Saul Alinsky's book, Rules for
Radicals, they have gone on the attack: Pick a target, freeze it,
personalize it, and polarize it. A good tactic is one your people enjoy.
A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. Keep the pressure on,
with different tactics and actions. They've also borrowed from the
Islamic State playbook: Silence your enemies.

Led by Greenpeace
associate Kert Davies, this Climatist Jihad wing of the climate chaos
movement has launched a well funded, carefully choreographed vendetta of
character assassination and destruction, vilifying dangerous manmade
climate change "deniers" and trying to destroy their careers. Their Big
Green, Big Government and media allies are either actively complicit,
rooting from the sidelines or silent.

Instead of bullets, bombs
and beheadings, they use double standards, Greenpeace FOIA demands,
letters from Senator Ed Markey and Congressman Raul Grijalva, threats of
lost funding and jobs, and constant intimidation and harassment.
Submit, recant, admit your guilt, renounce your nature-rules-climate
faith, Climatist Jihadis tell climate realists. Or suffer the
consequences, which might even include IRS, EPA and Fish & Wildlife
Service swat teams bursting through your doors, as they did with Gibson
Guitars.

Their first target was Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics scientist Wei-Hock "Willie" Soon. Working closely with
Greenpeace's Climate Investigations Center, the Boston Globe and New
York Times alleged that Dr. Soon received $1.25 million from the fossil
fuel industry, but failed to disclose those funds when his scientific
papers were published and falsely claimed he had no conflict of
interest.

The charges are bogus. Harvard had full knowledge of
Dr. Soon's research financing and took 40% of the grant money off the
top: some $500,000! The details are all public records, and Dr. Soon has
a solid track record of going where his careful and extensive research
takes him - regardless of where the money comes from. Not a scrap of
evidence suggests that he falsified or fabricated data or conclusions,
or twisted his science to satisfy research sponsors, on any of the
numerous topics he has studied.

He has received incredible flak
from environmentalist pressure groups, media outlets and even his own
university - and has courageously stood behind his research, analyses
and findings, which continue to withstand intense scientific scrutiny.
Harvard-Smithsonian recently said it "does not support Dr. Soon's
conclusions on climate change," and Harvard Earth and Planetary Sciences
Professor Daniel Schrag averred that Soon's approach to finding global
average temperatures was perhaps not "as honest as other approaches."
But they offer not a scintilla of evidence to support their allegations
of inaccuracy and dishonesty, and give him no opportunity to respond.

Indeed,
one of the most prominent aspects of the climate imbroglio is the
steadfast refusal of alarmist scientists to discuss or debate their
findings with experts who argue that extensive, powerful natural forces -
not human carbon dioxide emissions - drive Earth's climate and weather.
"Manmade disaster" proponents also refuse to divulge raw data, computer
codes and other secretive work that is often paid for with taxpayer
money and is always used to justify laws, treaties, regulations,
mandates and subsidies that stifle economic growth, kill jobs and reduce
living standards.

Dr. Soon is not the only target. The Climate
Jihadists are also going after Robert Balling, Matt Briggs, John
Christy, Judith Curry, Tom Harris, Steven Hayward, David Legates,
Richard Lindzen, and Roger Pielke, Jr. More are sure to follow, because
their work eviscerates climate cataclysm claims and raises serious
questions about the accuracy, credibility, integrity and sanctity of
alarmist science.

Climate Crisis, Inc. wants a monopoly over the
issue. Its members focus almost exclusively on alleged human causes of
climate change and extreme weather events - and would love to see
skeptics silenced. Crisis proponents will not even attend scientific
conferences where skeptics discuss natural causes and alarmists have
opportunities to defend their hypotheses, models and evidence. (Perhaps
the FCC needs to investigate this monopoly and issue "climate
neutrality" rules, to ensure honest and balanced discussion.)

It
fits a depressing pattern: of the White House, Democrats and liberals
shutting down debate, permitting no amendments, conducting business
behind closed doors, not allowing anyone to read proposed laws and
regulations, rarely even recognizing that there are differing views - on
ObamaCare, ObamaNetCare, IRS harassment of conservative donors and
groups, PM Netanyahu's speech to Congress, or climate change.

The
Climate Crisis industry thrives on tens of billions of dollars
annually, for one-sided climate research, drilling and fracking studies,
renewable energy projects and other programs, all based on dubious
claims that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions threaten
climate stability and planetary survival.

Businesses, job holders
and consumers pay the huge costs of complying with the resultant
regulations and soaring energy costs. Taxpayers pay for much of the
research and propaganda that drives the rulemaking. Russia and hard-left
foundations have also contributed billions to the process; and
government unions, environmental pressure groups and renewable energy
companies give generously to researchers and to politicians who keep the
alarmist research programs, regulatory processes, mandates and
subsidies alive.

All of this raises another elephantine issue. If
a couple million dollars over a decade's time creates near-criminal
conflict-of-interest and disclosure problems for skeptic/realist
scientists, what effects do billions of dollars in research money have
on alarmist researchers and their universities and institutions?

Few,
if any, alarmist researchers have disclosed that their work was funded
by government agencies, companies, foundations and others with enormous
financial, policy, political and other interests in their work, ensuring
that their conclusions support manmade factors and debunk natural
causes. Many of those researchers have signed statements that their
research and papers involved no conflicts, knowing they would not get
these grants, if their outcomes did not reflect the sponsors' interests
and perspectives.

We need to end the double standard - and investigate the alarmist researchers and institutions.

Or
better yet, let us instead have that all-out, open, robust debate that
climate realists have long sought - and alarmists have refused to join.
Equal government and other money for all research. All cards and
evidence on the table. No more hiding data and codes. Answer all
questions, no matter how tough or inconvenient. And let honest science
decide what our energy and economic futures will be.

Via email

Historic documents show half of Australia’s warming trend is due to “adjustments”

Adjustments that cool historic temperatures have almost doubled Australia’s rate of warming

There
was a time back in 1933 when the CSIRO was called CSIR and
meteorologists figured that with 74 years of weather data on Australia,
they really ought to publish a serious document collating all the
monthly averages at hundreds of weather stations around Australia.

Little
did they know that years later, despite their best efforts, much of the
same data would be forgotten and unused or would be adjusted, decades
after the fact, and sometimes by as much as one or two degrees.

Twenty
years later The Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics would
publish an Official Year Book of Australia which included the mean
temperature readings from 1911 to 1940 at 44 locations.

Chris
Gillham has spent months poring over both these historic datasets, as
well as the BoM’s Climate Data Online (CDO) which has the recent
temperatures at these old stations. He also compares these old records
to the new versions in the BOM’s all new, all marvelous, best quality
ACORN dataset. He has published all the results and tables comparing
CDO, CSIR and Year Book versions.

He analyzes them in many ways –
sometimes by looking at small subsets or large groups of the 226 CSIR
stations. But it doesn’t much matter which way the data is grouped, the
results always show that the historic records had warmer average
temperatures before they were adjusted and put into the modern ACORN
dataset. The adjustments cool historic averages by around 0.4 degrees,
which sounds small, but the entire extent of a century of warming is
only 0.9 degrees C. So the adjustments themselves are the source of
almost half of the warming trend.

The big question then is
whether the adjustments are necessary. If the old measurements were
accurate as is, Australia has only warmed by half a degree. In the 44
stations listed in the Year Book from 1911-1940, the maxima at the same
sites is now about half a degree warmer in the new millenia. The minima
are about the same.

Remember that these sites from 1911-1940 were
all recorded with modern Stevenson Screen equipment. Furthermore,
since that era the biggest change in those sites has been from the
Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect as the towns and cities grew up around
the sites. In some places this effect may already have been warming
those thermometers in the first half of the last century, but in others
UHI can make 5 to 7 degrees difference.

If Australian
thermometers are recording half a degree higher than they were 70 – 100
years ago, we have to ask how much of that warming is the UHI effect?
Common sense would suggest that if these older stations need any
correction, it should be upward rather than downward to compensate for
the modern increase in concrete, buildings and roads. Alternatively, to
compare old readings in unpopulated areas with modern ones, we would
think the modern temperatures should be adjusted down, rather than the
older ones.

Chris Gillham discusses the potential size of the UHI changes:

“In
2012 and 2013 it was anticipated that UHI warming in south-eastern
Australia will continue to intensify by approximately 1C per decade over
and above that caused by global warming (Voogt 2002), with tests in
1992 showing a UHI influence up to 7.2C between the Melbourne CBD and
rural areas. [PDF]

Smaller but significant UHI influences were
found in regional towns, with a 1994 test observing a UHI intensity up
to 5.4C between the centre of a Victorian town and its rural
outskirts.”

The situation with adjustments stays roughly
the same if we go back even further. Gillham compared 226 stations
during the period from 1855 -1931 and the average is about half a degree
less than what it is now — from 2000-2014.

The first station in
the CSIR record, Melbourne, starts in 1855. Each year, new stations came
online. By 1865 there are ten stations and by 1880 there are nearly 30.

Ideally
we could compare 50 stations which didn’t move or start and stop over
the same period, but even the ACORN dataset in the 1900s doesn’t do
that, introducing new stations up to the 1970s.

It is hard to
draw conclusions from the CSIR record as is. But neither can it be
ignored. Roughly two thirds of the temperatures were recorded on
Stevenson screens, but much of the data in the 1800s was recorded on
screens, sheds and shades until Stevenson screens were introduced across
Australia over the 20 year period from 1887 – 1907. And scientists in
the 1930s were very much aware of the effect of slight changes in
screens as one long running comparison of different screens side by side
had already been going for over 30 years in Adelaide. (I’ll write more
on that soon).

It’s rough but, as rough guides go, it’s the only
data we have. Other peer reviewed papers have estimated Australia’s
average temperature change to 0.09C in 1000AD based on two groves
of trees in Tasmania and New Zealand. Wouldn’t thermometers be kinda
useful?

One small piece of good news is that at least the early
CDO records maintained by the BoM online appear to match the averages
within the Year Book and CSIR tables. At least the copies of the
original data put online are accurate as far as these rough tests go.

The Bottom line

There is a treasure trove of information in these historic documents for people interested in long-term climate.

The
difference between the original records and the adjusted ACORN dataset
suggests that the adjustments cooled original temperatures by 0.4C
between 1910 and 1940, which means that around 45% of the modern
“warming” trend is due to these homogenisations and adjustments which
have not been independently justified and oddly appear to go in the
opposite direction to what common sense would suggest might be
necessary. In the older and larger CSIR tables, there is an overall
cooling adjustments of 0.5C.

Thanks to Chris Gillham for the massive amount of data crunching and tracking it takes to provide meaningful numbers.

Chris Gillham’s Conclusions:

Downward
ACORN adjustment of historic temperature records from weather stations
before 1940 adds 0.3C or 0.4C to Australia’s rate of climate warming
since 1910 but the reason for the downward adjustments is unclear.

Various
timescale and station comparisons show insignificant changes or warming
up to 0.5C from 1931 to 2000-14. These temperatures from 1855 to 1940
are compared to what the BoM describes as the hottest decade ever
recorded in Australia (2014 claimed as the third hottest).

Other
historic documents add weight to the evidence that pre-1910 temperatures
were not significantly cooler than current readings.

For
example, On the Climate of the Yass-Canberra District published in 1910
by Commonwealth Meteorologist Henry Hunt shows temperatures at 10
locations were on average 0.1C warmer in all years before 1909 than in
2004-2013. Hunt also presents 1909 summer and winter mean temperatures
at six northern Australia locations which average 0.2C warmer than those
locations in 2004-2013 (download PDF).

The CSIR and Year Book
temperature datasets are unadjusted records compiled by Australia’s
leading scientists and weather experts in the mid 20th century and are
accurate but differ from BoM records that are adjusted in both RAW and
ACORN.

Their dataset timescales include the first 85 years of
temperature recording at most weather stations across Australia in a
network more than twice as large as ACORN, and their averages are a
legitimate historic record indicating climate warming has been
significantly less than calculated with adjusted data since 1910.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

2 March, 2015

Judith Curry's reflections on the witch-hunt against skeptics

It
looks like it is ‘open season’ on anyone who deviates even slightly
from the consensus. The political motivations of all this
are apparent from barackobama.com: Call Out The Climate Deniers.

It
is much easier for a scientist just to ‘go along’ with the
consensus. In a recent interview, as yet unpublished, I was asked:
I’ve seen some instances where you have been called a “denier” when it
comes to climate change, I am just curious as to your opinion on that?
My reply:

"As a scientist, I am an independent thinker, and I
draw my own conclusions about the evidence regarding climate change. My
conclusions, particularly my assessments of high levels of uncertainty,
differ from the ‘consensus’ of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC). Why does this difference in my own assessment relative to
the IPCC result in my being labeled a ‘denier’? Well, the political
approach to motivate action on climate change has been to ‘speak
consensus to power’, which seems to require marginalizing and
denigrating anyone who disagrees. The collapse of the consensus
regarding cholesterol and heart disease reminds us that for scientific
progress to occur, scientists need to continually challenge and reassess
the evidence and the conclusions drawn from the evidence".

Well,
the burden is on Georgia Tech to come up with all of the requested
info. Georgia Tech has a very stringent conflict of interest policy, and
I have worked closely in the past with the COI office to manage
any conflicts related to my company. Apart from using up valuable
resources at Georgia Tech to respond to this, there is no burden on me.

Other
than an emotional burden. This is the first time I have been
‘attacked’ in a substantive way for doing my science honestly and
speaking up about it. Sure, anonymous bloggers go after me, but I
have received no death threats via email, no dead rats delivered to my
door step, etc.

I think Grijalva has made a really big mistake in
doing this. I am wondering on what authority Grijalva is
demanding this information? He is ranking minority member of a committee
before which I have never testified. Do his colleagues in the
Democratic Party support his actions? Are they worried about
backlash from the Republicans, in going after Democrat witnesses?

I
don’t think anything good will come of this. I anticipate that
Grijalva will not find any kind of an undisclosed fossil fuel smoking
gun from any of the 7 individuals under investigation. There is
already one really bad thing that has come of this – Roger Pielke Jr has
stated:

"The incessant attacks and smears are effective, no
doubt, I have already shifted all of my academic work away from climate
issues. I am simply not initiating any new research or papers on the
topic and I have ring-fenced my slowly diminishing blogging on the
subject. I am a full professor with tenure, so no one need worry about
me — I’ll be just fine as there are plenty of interesting, research-able
policy issues to occupy my time. But I can’t imagine the message being
sent to younger scientists. Actually, I can: “when people are producing
work in line with the scientific consensus there’s no reason to go on a
witch hunt.”"

Update: I just remembered something
interesting/entertaining. Too bad Grijalva only requested my
travel since 2007. In 2006 I was on the ‘green circuit’, with
numerous invites from green advocacy groups. One trip is
particularly notable, which was organized by the Wildlife
Federation. Peter Webster and I had an hour with then Governor Jeb
Bush, and then another hour with then candidate Charlie Crist.

Following
that meeting, we visited several different cities, where I and Joe Romm
(!) gave a tag team presentation on the climate change problem and the
solutions.

So I’m not sure how to ‘score’ this one; Wildlife
Federation and Romm on one side, and Jeb Bush on the other side.
To those of you not following U.S. politics, Jeb Bush is a Republican
candidate for President in the 2016 elections.

It
isn’t the fossil-fuel companies that are polluting climate science.
Citing documents uncovered by the radical environmental group
Greenpeace, a group of media outlets — including the New York Times and
the Boston Globe — have attacked global-warming skeptic Wei-Hock
(Willie) Soon for allegedly hiding $1.2 million in contributions from
“fossil fuel companies.”

The articles were the latest in an
ongoing campaign by greens and their media allies to discredit opponents
of the warming agenda.

But in allying themselves closely with
activist groups with which they share ideological goals, reporters have
fundamentally misled readers on the facts of global-warming funding. In
truth, the overwhelming majority of climate-research funding comes from
the federal government and left-wing foundations. And while the energy
industry funds both sides of the climate debate, the
government/foundation monies go only toward research that advances the
warming regulatory agenda.

With a clear public-policy outcome in
mind, the government/foundation gravy train is a much greater threat to
scientific integrity. Officials with the Smithsonian Institution —
which employs Dr. Soon — told the Times it appeared the scientist had
violated disclosure standards, and they said they would look into the
matter.

Soon, a Malaysian immigrant, is a widely respected
astrophysicist, and his allies came quickly to his defense. “It is a
despicable, reprehensible attack on a man of great personal integrity,”
says Myron Ebell, the director of Global Warming and International
Environmental Policy for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who
questioned why media organizations were singling out Soon over research
funding.

Indeed, experts in the research community say that it
is much more difficult for some of the top climate scientists — Soon,
Roger Pielke Jr., the CATO Institute’s Patrick Michaels, MIT’s
now-retired Richard Lindzen — to get funding for their work because they
do not embrace the global-warming fearmongering favored by the
government-funded climate establishment.

“Soon’s integrity in
the scientific community shines out,” says Ebell. “He has foregone his
own career advancement to advance scientific truth. If he had only
mouthed establishment platitudes, he could’ve been named to head a big
university [research center] like Michael Mann.”

Mann is the
controversial director of Pennsylvania State’s Earth System Science
Center. He was at the center of the 2009 Climategate scandal, in which
e-mails were uncovered from climatologists discussing how to skew
scientific evidence and blackball experts who don’t agree with them.

Mann
is typical of pro-warming scientists who have taken millions from
government agencies. The federal government — which will gain
unprecedented regulatory power if climate legislation is passed — has
funded scientific research to the tune of $32.5 billion since 1989,
according the Science and Public Policy Institute. That is an amount
that dwarfs research contributions from oil companies and utilities,
which have historically funded both sides of the debate. Mann, for
example, has received some $6 million, mostly in government grants —
according to a study by The American Spectator — including $500,000 in
federal stimulus money while he was under investigation for his
Climategate e-mails.

Despite claims that they are watchdogs of
the establishment, media outlets such as the Times have ignored the
government’s oversized role in directing research. And they have ignored
millions in contributions from left-wing foundations — contributions
that, like government grants, seek to tip the scales to one side of the
debate.

Last summer, a minority staff report from the U.S.
Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works gave details on a
“Billionaire’s Club” — a shadowy network of charitable foundations that
distribute billions to advance climate alarmism. Shadowy nonprofits such
as the Energy Foundation and Tides Foundation distributed billions to
far-left green groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council,
which in turn send staff to the EPA who then direct federal grants back
to the same green groups. It is incestuous. It is opaque. Major media
ignored the report.

Media outlets have also discriminated in
their reporting on Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. The Times
trumpeted Greenpeace FOIA requests revealing Soon’s benefactors, yet it
has ignored the government’s refusal of FOIA filings requesting
transparency in pro-warming scientists’ funding. The Competitive
Enterprise Institute, for example, has submitted FOIA requests asking
for the sources of outside income of NASA scientist James Hansen (a key
ally of Al Gore). The government has stonewalled, according to Ebell.

Media
reporting further misleads readers in suggesting that “fossil fuel”
utilities such as the Southern Company (a $409,000 contributor to Soon’s
research, according to the Times) seek only to undermine climate
science.

In truth, energy companies today invest in solar,
biomass, and landfill facilities in addition to carbon fuels. Companies
such as Duke Energy, Exelon Corporation, NRG Energy, and Shell have even
gone so far as to join with green groups in forming the U.S. Climate
Action Partnership — an industry/green coalition that wants to “enact
strong national legislation to require significant reductions of
greenhouse gas emissions.”

This alliance worries a scientific
community that is hardly unanimous that warming is a threat. Continued
funding of contrarians such as Soon and Lindzen is essential to getting
the best scientific research at a time when the EPA wants to shut down
America’s most affordable power source, coal — at enormous cost to
consumers.

The lack of warming for over a decade (witness this
winter’s dangerous, record-breaking low temperatures) and Climategate
are proof that the establishment has oversold a warming crisis. Attempts
by the media to shut up their critics ignore the real threat to
science.

The resignation letter of the IPCC chairman is a two-page love letter to himself.

Rajendra
Pachauri resigned as chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) today. It was a long time coming. As a journalist who has
followed his career for the past five years, writing enough to fill a
full-length book, my assessment of 74-year-old Pachauri is a harsh one:
He has been a non-stop train wreck.

Today, he finally exited the
stage. In true Pachauri fashion, his resignation letter is a two-page
love letter to himself. You wouldn’t know that recent allegations of
sexual assault, stalking, harassment, and uttering threats suggest
strongly that he is a longtime sexual predator.

You wouldn’t know
that this latest scandal has profoundly undermined the credibility of
the IPCC in the run-up to the UN climate summit scheduled for Paris in
December.

Instead, Pachauri talks about all the wonderful things
that happened during his 13-year reign. He refers to “priceless assets”
and “unmatched contributions.” And to the “close friends and colleagues”
who urged him to finish his term rather than quit early. (Neglecting to
mention the calls for his resignation issued by the Sunday London
Times, the Financial Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Sunday Telegraph,
and the New Scientist over the years.)

Pachauri’s letter talks about his “greatest joy” and his “sublime satisfaction.” And about religion:

"For
me the protection of Planet Earth, the survival of all species and
sustainability of our ecosystems is more than a mission. It is my
religion and my dharma."

Yes, the IPCC – which we’re told to take
seriously because it is a scientific body producing scientific reports –
has, in fact, been led by an environmentalist on a mission. By someone
for whom protecting the planet is a religious calling.

Even here,
at the end, Pachauri fails to grasp that science and religion don’t
belong in the same sentence; that those on a political mission are
unlikely to be upholders of rigorous scientific practice.

What’s
missing from this letter is any suggestion of remorse. When a
scandal-plagued leader resigns because his alleged misdeeds are nuking
his organization’s reputation, that is a mark of failure. He has let
everyone down.

Where are his words of apology to the thousands of
IPCC-linked scientists whose honour is now eternally tarnished by their
association with him?

In August 2013, after US Secretary of
State John Kerry described Pachauri’s leadership of the IPCC as
“extraordinary,” I asked the rhetorical question: If that is the case,
what would a bad job look like? before listing 17 reasons why Pachauri’s
behaviour has been inadequate and inexcusable.

It’s cliché to say we have a water crisis. It’s certainly cliché to blame it on “climate change,” i.e. fossil fuels.

But
if we look at the big-picture data, as against fixating on the most
dramatic headlines about the places that happen to be in a state of
drought (such as southern California, where I live), a different story
emerges: thanks in part to increasing fossil fuel use, we are bringing
about a world where our bodies and our crops have more of the water they
need, not less.

The Water Opportunity: Ending Drought as We Know It

Let’s
look at droughts. To read the headlines about “megadroughts” you would
think that drought is a worse problem than ever. And that would be a
big, big problem.

Droughts are historically the most common form
of climate-related death; a lack of rainfall can affect the supply of
the two most basic essentials of life, food and water. Drought is also
supposed to be one of the most devastating consequences of CO2
emissions, so let’s see how they match up.

Clearly, CO2 emissions
have not had a significant effect on droughts, but expanded human
ability to fight drought, powered by fossil fuels, has: from better
agriculture (more crops for more people), to rapid transportation to
drought-affected areas, to modern irrigation that makes farmers less
dependent on rainfall. Shouldn’t fossil fuel energy get some credit
here?

To give you one particularly astonishing data point, the
International Disaster Database reports that the United States has had
zero deaths from drought in the last eight years. This doesn’t mean
there are actually zero, as the database only covers incidents involving
ten or more deaths, but it means pretty near zero.

Historically,
drought is the number-one climate-related cause of death. Worldwide it
has gone down by 99.98% in the last eighty years, for many
energy-related reasons: oil-powered drought-relief convoys, more food in
general because of more prolific, fossil fuel-based agriculture, and
irrigation systems. And yet we constantly hear reports that fossil fuels
are making droughts worse. These reports give credibility to
climate-prediction models that can’t predict climate, but no credibility
to the plain facts about how important more energy is to countering
drought.

The Water Opportunity: Clean Drinking Water for All

Access to clean water goes up dramatically in the last 25 years as countries have used more and more fossil fuels.

To
understand this trend—and why it’s not a coincidence—we have to step
back and ask the question: Where does clean water come from?

Most of Earth’s surface is covered with water—but not nearly enough of it is usable for our high standards and purposes.

Most
of the water is saltwater in the oceans. Most of the fresh water is
trapped in massive ice sheets in places like Antarctica or Greenland.
Some is part of a large water cycle of clouds and precipitation. Some
portion is naturally “poisoned” brackish water of low quality in soil
layers deep below the surface, containing too much salt and too many
metals and other chemicals to be of any use without energy-intensive
treatment. Nature does not deliberately or consistently produce
“drinking water” able to meet a rigorous set of human health
specifications.

As I wrote in my article “How Fossil Fuels Cleaned Up Our Environment”:

If you were to turn
on your faucet right now, in all likelihood you could fill a glass with
water that you would have no fear of drinking. Consider how that water
got to you: It traveled to your home through a complex network of
plastic (oil) or copper pipes originating from a massive storage tank
made of metal and plastic. Before it ever even got to the distribution
tank, your water went through a massive, high-energy treatment plant
where it was treated with complex synthetic chemicals to remove toxic
substances like arsenic or lead or mercury. Before that, the water would
have been disinfected using chlorine, ozone, or ultraviolet light to
kill off any potentially harmful biological organisms. And to make all
these steps work efficiently, the pH level of the water has to be
adjusted, using chemicals like lime or sodium hydroxide."

Natural
water is rarely so usable. Most of the undeveloped world has to make do
with natural water, and the results are horrifying. Billions of people
have to get by using water that might contain high concentrations of
heavy metals, dissolved hydrogen sulfide gas (which produces a
rotten-egg smell), and countless numbers of waterborne pathogens that
still claim millions of lives each year. It’s a major victory for any
person who gains access to the kind of water we take for granted every
day—a victory that fossil fuels deserve a major part of the credit for.

The
lesson is clear: if we want a water-filled future, we need a
power-filled future. One where we have more power to turn unusable water
into usable water—to move clean water to where it needs to be. Clean
water is overwhelmingly something we create, not something we get.
Remember that next time you hear about a “water crisis,” because a water
crisis is ultimately a power crisis: a failure to produce or use the
power that can get clean water to anyone, anywhere.

The
Associated Press and Seth Borenstein are at it again. The article by
Seth Borenstein and Luis Andres Henao titled ‘Glacial Melting In
Antarctica Makes Continent The ‘Ground Zero Of Global Climate Change’‘
was published on February 27, 2014.

The AP left out contrary
peer-reviewed studies, inconvenient data and trends that counter the
articles ‘worse than we thought’ narrative. The AP paints an erroneous
picture of potential sea level rise, volcanic causes of any melting and
the current state of Antarctica and the geologic history of the
continent.

Why did the AP not include any ice specialists with
differing views? See: Prominent Scientist Dissents: Renowned
glaciologist declares global warming is ‘going to be a big plus’ – Fears
‘Frightening’ Cooling – Warns scientists are ‘prostituting their
science’ – Dr. Hughes is an internationally renowned glaciologist who
pioneered many of the modern ideas currently under study in the field.’
Dr. Hughes has travelled to the Arctic ten times and the Antarctic
thirteen times since 1968, mostly as the principal investigator of
NSF-funded glaciological research.

Of course this was no surprise
given the article was co-written by Seth Borenstein who’s recent
reporting on ‘hottest year’ claims had to be corrected. See: AP
‘clarifies’ ‘hottest year’ claims: ‘Kudos to Marc Morano for keeping the
heat (heh) on about this’AP’s Seth Borenstein at it again! Claims
‘global warming means more Antarctic ice’ — Meet the new consensus, the
opposite of the old consensus

Borenstein has a long history of
promoting global warming fears at the expense of journalistic ethics.
See: ‘Long sad history of AP reporter Seth Borenstein’s woeful global
warming reporting’ More on Borenstein here.

Climate Depot Analysis:

First
off, no mention of all=time record sea ice (not land based ice sheets)
expansion in Antarctica. See: Feds: ‘January had largest Antarctic sea
ice extent on record’ – NCDC: ‘Antarctic sea ice during January was
890,000 square miles (44.6 percent) above the 1981–2010 average. This
was the largest January Antarctic sea ice extent on record, surpassing
the previous record set in 2008 by 220,000 square miles.’ & National
Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC): Past 3 years in a row set ice
record! ‘Sea ice in Antarctica has remained at satellite-era record high
daily levels for most of 2014?

And yes, AP’s Seth Borenstein has
previously tried to claim that more Antarctic sea ice is caused by
global warming. See: AP’s Seth Borenstein at it again! Claims ‘global
warming means more Antarctic ice’ — Meet the new consensus, the opposite
of the old consensus

Of course this claim ignores contrary data.
See: Brian Gunter: ‘Antarctic Continent Has Not Warmed In The Last 50
Years’ — ‘Zero temperature trend for the main regions of the Antarctic
continent’

And by just focusing on the smaller West Antarctic ice
sheets, the AP seems to be intentionally misleading readers by ignoring
the conditions on the vast bulk of Antarctica. See: 2013: New paper
finds the majority of East Antarctic glaciers have advanced in size
since 1990 – A new paper published in Nature.

AP
claim: ‘In the worst case scenario, Antarctica’s melt could push sea
levels up 10 feet (3 meters) worldwide in a century or two…Scientists
estimate it will take anywhere from 200 to 1,000 years to melt enough
ice to raise seas by 10 feet, maybe only 100 years in a worst case
scenario.’

Climate Depot Response: This is just speculation,
unproven predictions amped up with extreme scenarios and not based on
current climate reality. According to the AP’s article, the melt rate
has slowed down. See: Sunshine Hours blog: Antarctica Losing 130
gigatons of ice per year (last Year it was 159 gigatons per year) 1)
Last year it was 159 gigatons per year (Almost all of it where there are
volcanoes under the ice)

2) NSIDC: “The Antarctic Ice Sheet
contains 30 million cubic kilometers (7.2 million cubic miles) of ice.” A
gigaton of ice is approximately one cubic kilometer of ice.

So … at 130 gigatons per year, how long before Antarctica melts? That would be 30,000,000 / 130.

The Answer: 230,000 years until Antarctica melts. Why did Associated Press Borenstein fail to mention that?

AP
Claim: ‘130 billion tons of ice (118 billion metric tons) per year for
the past decade, according to NASA satellite calculations. That’s the
weight of more than 356,000 Empire State Buildings, enough ice melt to
fill more than 1.3 million Olympic swimming pools.’

Climate Depot
Response: Sounds scary, right? Well, that is what the AP
reporters want you to be scared. But just how alarming is that
melt rate? The AP answers that question many paragraphs later.

“At
its current rate, the rise of the world’s oceans from Antarctica’s ice
melt would be barely noticeable, about one-third of a millimeter a year.
The oceans are that vast.”

So all of these analogies about
Empire State Buildings and Olympic swimming pools amount to ‘barely
noticeable.’ Of course the rate of sea level rise is not noticing
anything unusual in Antarctica.

Even the IPCC concedes that
there was no significant anthropogenic influence on climate prior to
1950, thus man is not be responsible for sea level rise beginning
150-200 years ago, at the end of the Little Ice Age.

Via The
Hockey Schtick: The sea level rise over the past ~200 years shows no
evidence of acceleration, which is necessary to assume a man-made
influence. Sea level rise instead decelerated over the 20th century,
decelerated 31% since 2002 and decelerated 44% since 2004 to less than 7
inches per century. There is no evidence of an acceleration of sea
level rise, and therefore no evidence of any man-made effect on sea
levels. Sea level rise is primarily a local phenomenon related to land
subsidence, not CO2 levels. Therefore, areas with groundwater depletion
and land subsidence have much higher rates of relative sea level rise,
but this has absolutely nothing to do with man-made CO2.

Scientist
counters media hype on Antarctic ice sheet ‘collapse: ‘It has been in
progress for several thousand years, and is neither new nor man-caused’

Some
Perspective on the Headlining Antarctic Ice Loss Trends – The press
coverage is aimed to make this sound alarming—“This West Antarctic
region sheds a Mount Everest-sized amount of ice every two years, study
says” screamed the Washington Post. Wow! That sounds like a lot.

Turns
out, it isn’t. The global oceans are vast. Adding a “Mount
Everest-sized amount of ice every two years” to them results in a sea
level rise of 0.02 inches per year.

Climatologist Dr. Pat
Michaels Mocks climate claims: ‘Sea levels have been rising since before
the end of the last ice age, about 11,600 years before the Industrial
Revolution’

THE
Northern Territory lacks the proper regulatory environment to go ahead
with fracking, a report has found, as the government moves forward to
permit the practice.

THE Hydraulic Fracturing Inquiry report
recommends laws to effectively manage environmental risks associated
with the practice, which on Thursday was banned for a further five years
in Tasmania. "There is no justification whatsoever for the imposition
of a moratorium," the report read.

Mines and Energy Minister Dave
Tollner said the government would "broadly" adopt all six
recommendations in the report, which the NT government released on
Thursday.

"Obviously there's been a lot of heat in community
debate on the issue and the government is very keen to get the community
on board," Mr Tollner told reporters.

The government is considering drawing up exclusion zones around regional centres to allay health concerns by residents.

Mr
Tollner said it could take a year or longer to set up the right
regulations; meanwhile, there are 24 wells in the works to be drilled
this year.

While the regulations are being redrawn, operators
will have to abide by a set of "guiding principles", and if they violate
them they will be forced to stop work, Mr Tollner said.

But
relying on operators to monitor themselves is "completely nonsensical",
said David Morris, principal lawyer for the NT Environmental Defenders
Office (EDO).

"If you've got a good operator things will probably
be done in accordance with the guidelines, and if you've got a bad
operator they won't," he told AAP.

Mr Morris said mining often
occurred in remote parts of the NT, with the closest populations being
indigenous communities who often didn't fully understand the science.

Mr
Tollner said mining groups needed to communicate better with the
community in explaining fracking processes. "We expect them to be
very upfront and transparent with the community and they have to explain
exactly what they're doing," he said.

The report is "a victory
for science over scaremongering," said Steven Gerhardy, NT director of
the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association.

He
said the report offered a "sensible blueprint" for the shale gas
industry, which could provide jobs, investment and improved
infrastructure in remote and regional areas.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

1 March, 2015

Meat consumption causes global warming?

I
think I missed this article when it came out 6 years ago but it is
amusing. It is actually part of the war on meat that health
freaks, vegetarians and others have long been waging -- with very little
success -- as the article itself shows. There is a table attached
to the article that allows a comparison of consumption betweeen 1961
and 2002. And with the exception of hopelessly misgoverned
countries such as Argentina, meat consumption has risen markedly in most
countries over that time.

So the article is in fact a desperate
attempt to get the global warming religion to help with the crusade
against meat. It assumes the truth of global warming without
question. And there is certainly zero data on the relationship
between global temperature and meat consumption.

Between 1961
and 2002, meat consumption has seen a large increase virtually
worldwide and a corresponding jump in its environmental impact.

Links
between meat consumption and climate change have been widely known for
many years, partly due to deforestation in the Amazon rainforest to make
room for the livestock. Clearing these forests is estimated to produce a
staggering 17% of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than the entire
transport sector.

Increased meat-eating has followed rising
affluence in many parts of the world. China's levels doubled between
1990 and 2002. Back in 1961, the Chinese consumed a mere 3.6kg per
person, while in 2002 they reached 52.4kg each; half of the world's pork
is now consumed in China.

The US and the UK are among the few
countries whose meat consumption levels have remained relatively stable.
Surprisingly, it is not the US with the largest consumption (124.8),
but Denmark with a shocking 145.9kg per person in 2002

Slurpee waves! The moment semi-frozen breakers rolled ashore in New England amid record cold. And there are icebreakers on the Hudson

Plummeting
temperatures have broken hundreds of winter records across the country -
making February one of the coldest months in history.

But in
New England, it has gotten so cold even the waves are starting to
freeze. These incredible photos of so-called 'slurpee waves' were
taken by surfer Jonathan Nimerfroh in Nantucket, Massachusetts. He
took his camera out when he noticed the horizon looked strange - and
then spotted the surf had turn slushy.

The
stunning images were taken as snow and icy rain continues to cause
chaos across the country - with states of emergency being declared in
the South.

And even though March begins on Sunday - forecasters have warned that the arctic conditions are set to continue.

Mr
Nimerfroh, who posted the pictures on his Instagram account on
Wednesday, told the Daily Mail Online: 'When I pulled up to the beach I
could see the horizon just look strange. When I got to the top off the
dunes I see that about 300 yards out from the shoreline the ocean was
starting to freeze.

'The high temp that day was around 19
degrees. The wind was howling from south west which would typically make
rough or choppy conditions not so good for surfing but since the
surface of the sea was frozen slush the wind did not chance the shape.
They were perfect dreamy slush waves.

'Most waves were around
two feet with some larger sets slushing through around three foot or
waist high. What an experience to be absolutely freezing on the beach
watching these roll in while I mind surfed them.

'The next day I
drive up to see if things melted but that same 300 yards out of water
froze solid on the surface. No waves at all. I've been asking all the
fishermen and surfers if they have ever seen such a thing. This is a
first they all said.'

On Friday morning the cold will continue,
as temperatures will be at least 10 degrees below average in all areas
east of the Rockies, and up to 30 degrees below average in some areas.

It
comes after winter Storm Remus dumped a messy mix of snow, rain, sleet
and freezing rain from Texas to the Mid-Atlantic states.

The
conditions left 216,000 customers were without power from Alabama to
Virginia early on Thursday morning. Some motorists even woke up in their
cars after the snow meant highways were blocked off.

Thundersnow
was also reported in several locations, including northwest of Waco,
Texas early Wednesday morning and around midnight Thursday morning in
Raleigh, North Carolina.

Have
they forgotten that most deaths occur in winter? Warming would
save lives? They probably haven't. Most doctors (over 4
fifths) surveyed did not reply so there is no knowing what the majority
opinion was

Usually when the Obama administration is
discussing doctors and health issues, Obamacare is on the table.
Thursday, however, the White House threw a curve by linking health to
climate change. In a new blog post, the White House declares that "7 out
of 10 Doctors [say] Climate Change Is Already Harming Patients’
Health."

While often the White House has been a source of upbeat
reports on recent health improvements attributed in part to the
Affordable Care Act, the language of this post stands in sharp contrast.
For example:

"Already, 1 in 10 children in the U.S. suffers from
asthma. Heat-related health problems are growing. Pollen concentrations
are up. Rising temperatures are only going to bring more smog, more
asthma, and longer allergy seasons that put more Americans at greater
risk of landing in the hospital."

"...increases in air pollution
due to climate change are worsening the severity of illnesses in their
patients, and they expect these health impacts will further increase in
the future."

"...their patients are experiencing other
climate-related health problems — including injuries due to severe
weather, allergic reactions, and heat-related impacts."

The
survey cited by the White House was conducted by the American Thoracic
Society, a group of over 15,000 doctors, researchers, nurses, and other
health professionals with a focus on "research, clinical care, and
public health in respiratory disease, critical illness, and sleep
disorders." Although 5,500 members were randomly selected for
invitations to participate in the survey, only 17 percent responded. Of
the 915 respondents, 65 percent (rounded to 7 in 10 by the White House)
agreed that climate change is 'relevant to patient care" either "a great
deal" or "a moderate amount."

The White House also cites, but
does not link to, a survey of the National Medical Association's
membership whose results are said to be in line with the American
Thoracic Society survey. (The National Medical Association, according to
its website, "promotes the collective interests of physicians and
patients of African descent", and is distinct from the more well known
American Medical Association.)

The survey to which the White
House apparently refers can be found at climatechangecommunication.org
and indeed reports that respondents felt that "climate change is
affecting the health of their own patients a great deal or a moderate
amount (61 percent)." This survey had a response rate of 30 percent, or
284 respondents.

According to the White House, representatives of
the American Thoracic Society were on Capitol Hill Thursday to
"educate" representatives about the survey results to help push Congress
to support the president's climate initiatives.

In
recent weeks, Dr. Wei-Hock "Willie" Soon, a distinguished solar
astrophysicist, coauthored with Christopher Monckton, Matt Briggs, and
David Legates an important work of original scholarship in the Science
Bulletin (previously titled Chinese Science Bulletin), a publication of
the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The article reveals what appears
to be an error in the computer models used to predict global warming
that leads models to over-estimate future warming by a factor of three.
The article has been downloaded more than 10,000 times, a huge number
for a peer-reviewed journal article.

You might expect
environmentalists, policymakers, and reporters to celebrate this new
finding, since it means a potential threat to the environment and human
health has been found to be less likely than previously thought. If the
work of Soon et al. is confirmed by other scientists, the “global
warming crisis” may need to be cancelled and we can all enjoy lower
taxes, fewer regulations, and more personal freedom.

But this is
not how environmentalists and others reacted. Instead, they denounced
the article, often apparently without even having read it or understood
it. [See here, here, and here.] Christopher Monckton, one of the
article’s coauthors, ably defended the article from these criticisms.
Having failed to refute the article, environmentalists turned to
smearing the authors.

Forecast the Facts – a creepy front group
created by the left-of-center Center for American Progress to attack
meteorologists who don’t toe the environmentalists’ line on global
warming – launched a petition to the Smithsonian Institution
demanding that Dr. Soon be fired. They claim to have more than 20,000
signatures on it.

The petition is brief:

"Dr. Willie Soon —
an astrophysicist employed by the Smithsonian — is a go-to “scientist”
for climate deniers in Congress, despite his lack of climate
credentials. Worse yet, he’s received research grants exclusively from
fossil fuel companies and dark money groups since 2002.

Now The
Boston Globe is reporting that Soon just published a paper on climate
change without disclosing his fossil fuel funding — a violation of the
journal’s ethics code and a no-no in the science community.

The
claim that Dr. Soon lacks “climate credentials” is false and meant to
harm his reputation. Dr. Soon is a distinguished astrophysicist with
many published articles in peer-reviewed climate science journals. A bio
at heartland.org/willie-soon lists many publications and awards and
features this quotation from Freeman Dyson, one of the world’s most
respected physicists: “The whole point of science is to question
accepted dogmas. For that reason, I respect Willie Soon as a good
scientist and a courageous citizen.’’

Forecast the Facts’ second
lie is more serious, because alleging a violation of professional ethics
is taken seriously in the academy. Dr. Soon and his coauthors told the
editor ofScience Bulletin, “None of the authors has received
funding from any source for this work. The authors declare no conflicts
of interest.”

The petition misrepresents a Boston Globe article
which reported only that an environmental group “accused” Dr. Soon and
his coauthors of failing to report possible conflicts of interest to the
journal’s editor. The petition fails to tell potential signers that the
article quoted Soon’s coauthor, Christopher Monckton, vigorously
refuting the claim. It also fails to note the reporter said the Science
Bulletin had not responded to a request for comment, so he had no way of
knowing whether there was a “violation of the journal’s ethics code.”

We
have reviewed the Science Bulletin’s policy regarding disclosure
of potential conflicts of interest and the coauthors’ letter to the
editor explaining their decision to declare no conflicts of interest. We
believe the coauthors were correct and there was no violation of the
journal’s ethics code.

The phrasing of this petition is plainly
misleading, making it meaningless regardless of how many people are
fooled into signing it. It should immediately be withdrawn and a public
apology extended to Dr. Soon.

Regrettably, this fake petition is
typical of the tactics used by the left in the global warming debate.
Good men like Dr. Soon and his coauthors are being demeaned, threatened,
and their careers put at risk by organizations and individuals that
rarely get named, much less criticized, in the mainstream media.

Not a 100% believer? Even borderline climate apostates like Pielke must be punished in the witchhunt

The
witchhunt over tenuous connections to fossil fuel funding wants to do a
lot more than just silence a few people. The aim is to maintain the
global chill over all of academia. That’s why it’s so important we
support the individuals under fire, and don’t give in.

Congratulations
to Richard Lindzen, John Christy, Judith Curry, Steven Hayward, Roger
Pielke, David Legates, and Robert Balling. All of them have been named
to be investigated and lined up for character assassination like Willie
Soon. Obviously they are effective and convincing speakers, and a threat
to the climate-industry.

Stephen Hayward is flattered, and mocks the critics: “Are You Now or Have You Ever Been a Climate Skeptic?”

“Let’s
start by axing a simple question: If I say “two plus two equals four,”
does the truth of that proposition depend on whether I’ve received a
grant from the Charles G. Koch Foundation? Apparently it does for Rep.
Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), the ranking member of the House Committee on
Natural Resources. He has sent letters to seven universities targeting
seven academics who, according to the Democratic spokesman for the
committee, were chosen because they seem “to have the most impact on
policy in the scientific community.”

Even a tiny step beyond the approved line will be punished

Consider
how hard-line the inquisition is. Roger Pielke Jr. accepts most of the
consensus IPCC positions, even calling for a carbon tax, and supporting
Obama’s proposed EPA regulations, but he’s under fire as much as those
who question everything. The aim here is much larger than just
stopping Pielke — the real audience are the thousands of silent
borderline skeptical academics watching on. Imagine if they spoke their
minds? The message to them is “don’t even think it”. All academics
must be 100% believers, and even the smallest deviation from the
permitted line will receive the same treatment.

The harassment
and pressure work on whistleblowers. We are all human. Sadly even Pielke
admits, despite having tenure, that the harrassment means he has
changed the way he writes and researches:

The incessant attacks
and smears are effective, no doubt, I have already shifted all of my
academic work away from climate issues. I am simply not initiating any
new research or papers on the topic and I have ring-fenced my slowly
diminishing blogging on the subject.

As Mark Steyn would say the process is the punishment.

Judith Curry writes: This whole issue has now become personal.

As Paul Homewood says: McCarthyism is not dead.

The real conflicts of interest in climate science matter for people waving unreplicable models

Judith
Curry discusses the conflict of interests and points out that it not as
relevant in climate science as in other areas where things are not so
easily replicable:

The issue is this. The intense
politicization of climate science makes bias more likely to be coming
from political and ideological perspectives than from funding
sources. Unlike research related to food and drug safety and
environmental contaminants, most climate science is easily
replicable using publicly available data sets and models. So all
this IMO is frankly a red herring in the field of climate science
research.

I would argue that many of the results used in climate
science are not replicable in practice. They come from mysterious black
box models or detailed homogenization methods, which even if the full
code were available, would take individuals months of work to replicate.
In the total absence of funding and grants, no one independent is going
to replicate them.

In other words, the people who have conflicts
of interest that really need exposing are not skeptics reporting on
public datasets which can be replicated, but climate modelers and
temperature adjusters who make public announcements with billions of
dollars and lives resting on them, but which have not been independently
replicated. And when I say “independently” replicated, I don’t mean by
another group with the same conflict of interest.

If the evidence
was so solid, and the models so reliable, climate scientists would be
demanding and welcoming funding to outright skeptics to settle the
issue. Instead, fans of the complex unskilled and failing models know
that their assumptions are dubious and unsupported, and if a truly
skeptical scientist were given equivalent resources to replicate it,
they would probably tear it to shreds, exposing how fickle the
projections were and how dependent it all was on a few key, baseless,
guesses.

This
major attack on Warmist crooks in high places appeared in Australia's
national daily. I think Americans will have little difficulty in
mentally converting the cricket metaphor into a baseball metaphor

CRICKET
legend Donald Bradman is a useful metaphor for the escalating global
row over claims the world’s leading climate agencies have been messing
with the weather.

Imagine, for instance, if some bureau of sport
were to revise the Don’s batting average in Test cricket down from 99.94
to 75 after adjusting for anomalies and deleting innings of 200 runs or
more.

What if the bureau then claimed another batsman had exceeded the Don’s revamped record to become the greatest ever?

Critics
could be told the adjustments “don’t matter” because they had not
affected overall global batting averages. Just as many batsmen had been
adjusted up as down. And complaints could easily be dismissed as the
“cherrypicking” of a few, isolated batsmen.

David Stockwell,
Australian Research Council grant recipient and adjunct researcher at
Central Queensland University, raised the Bradman analogy in his
submission to a newly formed independent panel that will oversee the
operation of the Bureau of Meteorology’s national temperature dataset.

Stockwell
was highlighting public concerns at the BoM’s use of homogenisation
techniques to adjust historical temperature records to remove anomalies
and produce a national dataset called ACORN-SAT (Australian Climate
Observations Reference Network — Surface Air Temperature). The panel, or
technical advisory forum, which will hold its first discussions with
BoM staff on Monday, was formed in December after a series of questions
were raised publicly about the treatment of historic temperature records
that has resulted in temperature trends at some Australian sites being
changed from long-term cooling to warming.

Liberal senator Simon
Birmingham, former parliamentary secretary to Environment Minister Greg
Hunt, instructed BoM to fast-track the appointment of the panel, which
was recommended in 2011 in a peer review of ACORN-SAT’s establishment.
The make-up of the panel was announced by Birmingham’s replacement as
parliamentary secretary, Bob Baldwin, in January.

In the
meantime, controversy about homogenisation of climate records has
exploded into a global concern after similar trend changes to those
raised in Australia were identified in Paraguay and in the Arctic.
Accusations of “fraud” and “criminality” have been made against some of
the world’s leading weather agencies. There is now the prospect of a US
Senate inquiry.

Respected US climate scientist Judith Curry has
facilitated a wideranging debate on the issue, saying more research was
needed, but that it is probably not the “smoking gun” for climate
science, as some had claimed.

There is a long history regarding
complaints about how climate data has been handled by authorities and
how poorly those making complaints have been treated.

The general
trend is made clear in a 2007 email exchange, now known as Climategate,
between a senior BoM official and scientists at East Anglia University
in Britain. BoM’s David Jones said Australian sceptics could be easily
dissuaded if deluged with data.

“Fortunately in Australia our
sceptics are rather scientifically incompetent,” Jones wrote. “It is
also easier for us in that we have a policy of providing any complainer
with every single station observation when they question our data (this
usually snows them)”, he said.

Even better, noted East Anglia
University’s Phil Jones, was to give troublemakers a big package of data
with key information missing, making it impossible to decipher.

But
more than seven years on, as the world’s weather bureaus report more
and more broken temperature records and further examples emerge of
incongruous adjustments, the pressure is building for a transparent
process to finally untangle the numbers.

In Australia, ACORN-SAT
was created in 2009 to replace BoM’s so-called high-quality dataset
after questions were raised about the quality and accuracy of that
network.

ACORN-SAT, which the Senate was told this week is
managed by a two-person team in BoM, uses information from a select
range of weather stations and computer modelling to compile its national
temperature record. The data is also used to help create the global
temperature record.

The panel to oversee ACORN-SAT will be headed
by CSIRO scientist Ron Sandland and includes a wide range of experts in
statistics and mathematics.

Sandland tells Inquirer he will hold a teleconference with BoM on Monday to decide how the process would be run.

The
panel was first recommended by a peer review in September 2011 headed
by Ken Matthews. The peer review gave ACORN-SAT a glowing report,
describing it as conforming to world’s best practice. But it also called
for greater transparency, better communication and independent
oversight.

Despite criticisms about transparency and the results
of homogenisation at some sites by members of the public, BoM was slow
to act on the peer review recommendation to establish a technical
advisory forum.

BoM is one of Australia’s most widely trusted
organisations. Millions of people use its online weather services and a
Senate estimates hearing was told this week that more than 30,000 people
followed BoM’s Twitter feed in the wake of cyclones Marcia and Lam,
which landed simultaneously in Queensland and the Northern Territory
this week.

However, as one of the government’s lead agencies on
climate change, BoM has come under greater scrutiny. A vocal chorus has
been claiming that there is a pattern of historic temperatures being
reduced to make the warming trend of the late 21st century look more
acute.

The questioners were quickly labelled “amateurs” by
atmospheric scientist David Karoly, from the University of Melbourne, as
he and other climate science academics rushed to support BoM’s work.

But
the issue has exploded internationally following a declaration by US
agencies NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
that 2014 was the hottest year on record. As in Australia, regions were
found where warming temperature trends had been created or increased
through a process of homogenising records with neighbouring areas, some
in other countries hundreds of kilometres away.

Published
examples include Paraguay in South America and the Arctic, where a warm
period in the 1930s and a well-documented period of intense cold around
1970 were erased from the record by homogenisation to give a steady
rising temperature trend.

“How can we believe in ‘global warming’
when the temperature records providing the ‘evidence’ for that warming
cannot be trusted?” asked British contrarian and climate change sceptic
James Dellingpole.

“I’m not saying there has been no 20th-century
global warming, I think there probably has been,” he said. “But I don’t
honestly know. The worrying part … is that neither — it would appear —
do the scientists.”

The website of Britain’s The Sunday Telegraph
registered more than 30,000 comments under an article by columnist
Christopher Booker saying the fiddling of temperature data has been “the
biggest science scandal ever”. “What is now needed is a meticulous
analysis of all the data, to establish just how far these adjustments
have distorted the picture the world has been given,” Booker wrote.

The
integrity of global temperature records after homogenisation is
fiercely defended by global climate agencies, despite the fact that
satellite measurements available from 1979 show a slightly different
warming trend to surface-based records.

Australia’s BoM has
issued two statements ahead of the Sandland review panel. In one it says
temperature records are influenced by a range of factors such as
changes to site surrounds, measurement methods and the relocation of
­stations.

“Such changes introduce biases into the climate record that need to be adjusted for, prior to analysis,’’ BoM says.

“Adjusting
for these biases, a process known as homogenisation is carried out by
meteorological authorities around the world as best practice, to ensure
that climate data is consistent through time.”

BoM’s American
counterpart, NOAA’s National Climatic Data Centre, says for global
temperatures it is important to keep in mind that the largest adjustment
in the global surface temperature record occurs over the oceans.

“All
NOAA methodologies go through the peer-review process standard in
scientific inquiry,” it says. Despite this, there remains enormous and
heated debate about the issue.

Climate scientist Curry has opened
an online debate that includes key scientists from the independent
organisation Berkeley Earth, which compiles its own global temperature
record, the results of which accord with those of other international
agencies.

The Berkeley scientists conclude that Dellingpole and
Booker’s claims of the “biggest fraud” of all time and a “criminal
action” by climate scientists amount to nothing.

“Globally, the
effect of adjustments is minor because on average the biases that
require adjustments mostly cancel each other out,” they say.

But their web post generated heated discussion covering both the science of homogenisation and the standing of science.

European
climate change economist Richard Tol, responding to Curry’s post, says
the more important question raised by the debate over temperatures is
perhaps why the public has lost so much trust in climate science that it
prefers to believe columnists such as Booker over climate scientists at
Berkeley. A Telegraph poll suggested that 90 per cent of 110,000
readers had sided with Booker.

“I would hypothesise that the
constant stream of climate nonsense — we’re all gonna die, last chance
to save the planet, climate change is coming to blow over your house and
eat your dog — has made people rather suspicious of anything climate
‘scientists’ say,” according to Tol.

“If my hypothesis is
correct, instead of arguing with Booker about the details of
homogenisation, you should call out the alarmists.”

Curry tells
Inquirer her main conclusions from the heated exchange in response to
the Berkeley post are that “the stated uncertainties in global average
temperatures are too small”.

“More research needs to be done to
understand the impacts of the adjustments and to make individual
locations more consistent with the historical record,” she says.

She
says much more data work is needed to clarify the temperatures in the
Arctic, which is a big source of difference among the different datasets
in the northern hemisphere.

“I suspect that all this won’t change the qualitative result from the dataset, that is that the Earth is warming,” Curry says.

The
way in which the Australian review of the BoM ACORN-SAT data is
conducted could go a long way towards answering some of the questions
being asked worldwide.

A common criticism of climate authorities
such as BoM is that ­justifications for temperature smoothing may sound
reasonable in the broad, but are often poorly explained in the detail of
individual adjustments.

It is the task of the high-powered
review panel to satisfy itself that the integrity given to BoM’s dataset
by the initial peer review has been maintained.

Sitting on the panel with Sandland will be:

* Bob Vincent, emeritus professor in the school of chemistry and physics at the University of Adelaide.

* Phillip Gould, from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

* John Henstridge, who founded Data Analysis Australia, now the largest private statistical organisation in Australia,

* Susan Linacre, a former president of the International Association of Survey Statisticians.

*
Michael Martin, professor of statistics in the research school of
finance, actuarial studies and applied statistics at Australian National
University.

* Patty Solomon, professor of statistical bioinformatics at the University of Adelaide.

* Terry Speed, a former president of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics.

Declining
an invitation for David Jones, BoM’s manager of climate change and
prediction, to write for Inquirer, a BoM spokeswoman says establishment
of the technical advisory forum will provide “an independent framework
for quality assurance tests and analysis of the bureau’s climate
dataset, and it would not be appropriate to pre-empt this process.”

But critics of BoM are already lining up to have their questions answered.

Research
academic Jennifer Marohasy has accused BoM of using “creative
accounting practices” in both the homogenisation of data to remodel
individual series as well as the choice of stations and time periods
when the individual series are combined to calculate a national average
for each year.

Marohasy says BoM’s methodologies have turned a
cycle of warming and cooling over the past century into one of
continuous warming.

In a submission to the review group, Marohasy
makes three recommendations to render the overall official national
temperature trend for Australia “more consistent with history, and
reasonable accounting practices”.

The first is to use the same locations when calculating average mean temperatures for different years.

Marohasy’s
research shows that while the national average temperature is
calculated from a set of just 104 weather stations, the same 104
stations are not used every year.

“In particular, hotter places are added later in the time series, which currently begins in 1910”, she says.

“For example, Wilcannia is a very hot town in western NSW.

“There
is a long continuous maximum temperature record for Wilcannia that
extends back to 1881, but the bureau only adds Wilcannia into the mix
from 1957.

“Obviously, if the national average temperature is
calculated from a mix of hotter locations in the 1990s than, say, in the
1920s, then it will appear that Australia was hotter in the 1990s, even
if the temperatures at individual weather recording stations were the
same during these two periods,” Marohasy says.

Her second
recommendation is to start the official record from 1880, not 1910, thus
including the hot years of the Federation drought in the official
record.

Lastly, Marohasy says adjustments should not be made to
temperature series unless an irregularity exists in the original series
that was caused by a known, documented change in the equipment at that
weather recording station and/or a known change in the siting of the
equipment.

Her view is supported by retired certified practising
accountant Merrick Thomson, who has told the panel there is a lack of
transparency associated with the change in the mix of weather stations
used to calculate the national average.

Thomson says when BoM
transitioned to the new ACORN-SAT system in 2012 it removed 57 stations
from its calculations, replacing them with 36 on average hotter
stations.

“I calculate that this had the effect of increasing the
recorded Australian average temperature by 0.42C, independently of any
actual real change in temperature,” Thompson says.

“Of the 57
stations removed from the calculation of the national average
temperature, only three have actually closed as weather stations,” he
adds.

Thomson asks the panel: “Why was the mix of stations
changed with the transition to ACORN-SAT, and why was this not explained
and declared, particularly given that it has resulted in a large
increase in the 2013 annual temperature for Australia, I calculate 0.56
degree Celsius?”

He asks what criteria were used to determine whether a station becomes part of the national network.

Stockwell
says although many had rushed to defend the BoM, saying the adjustments
“don’t matter” as they do not change the global temperature graphs
appreciably, they clearly do matter to a lot of people.

In a submission to the panel, Stockwell highlights what he considered unsound practices by BoM in handling the national data.

“Every
portrayal of historical data should be historically accurate,” he says,
“else it becomes revisionism and strays out of the domain of science
and into the domain of ideology and politics.”

Self-declared
“citizen scientist” Ken Stewart has been more pointed. “The apparent
lack of quality assurance means ACORN-SAT is not fit for the purpose of
serious climate analysis including the calculation of annual temperature
trends, identifying hottest or coldest days on record, analysing the
intensity, duration and frequency of heatwaves, matching rainfall with
temperature, calculating monthly means or medians, and calculating
diurnal temperature range,” he says.

“In conclusion, ACORN-SAT is not reliable and should be scrapped.

“ACORN-SAT
shows adjustments that distort the temperature record and do not follow
the stated procedures in the bureau’s own technical papers, generating
warming biases at a large number of sites, thus greatly increasing the
network wide trends,” Stewart says in his submission.

“Furthermore,
the bureau does not take account of uncertainty, and the data are
generally riddled with errors indicating poor quality assurance.

“Finally,
its authors have not followed up on most undertakings made more than
three years ago to permit replication and improve transparency.

The
obvious and widespread depth of feeling about BoM’s ­treatment of
historical records ­underscores the wisdom of recommendations made by
the 2011 ACORN-SAT peer review.

The review panel encouraged BoM to improve the public transparency of ACORN-SAT arrangements.

“This
will not only build public confidence in the dataset but should assist
the bureau in its continuous improvement efforts and its responsiveness
to data users,” the peer review panel said.

“The panel also
encourages the bureau to more systematically document the process used,
and to be used, in the development and operations of ACORN-SAT.

“Some
aspects of current arrangements for measurement, curation and analysis
are non-transparent even internally, and are therefore subject to
significant ‘key persons risk’, as well as inconsistency over time.”

Current
criticism of BoM over the temperature series is obviously unfamiliar
territory for what remains one of Australia’s most highly regarded
public institutions.

This criticism is by no means an existential
threat to BoM but a rigorous and transparent review of ACORN-SAT data,
methodology and communication is clearly needed, and long overdue.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

IN BRIEF

This site is in favour of things that ARE good for the environment. That
the usual Greenie causes are good for the environment is however
disputed. Greenie policies can in fact be actively bad for the
environment -- as with biofuels, for instance

Context for the minute average temperature change recorded in the header
to this blog: At any given time surface air temperatures around the
world range over about 100°C. Even in the same place they can vary by
nearly that much seasonally and as much as 30°C or more in a day. A
minute rise in average temperature in that context is trivial if it is
not meaningless altogether. Warmism is a money-grubbing racket, not
science.

Leftists have faith that warming will come back some day. And they mock
Christians for believing in the second coming of Christ! They
obviously need religion

Global warming has in fact been a religious doctrine for over a century.
Even Charles Taze Russell, the founder of Jehovah's Witnesses,
believed in it

By John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.), writing from Brisbane, Australia.

I am the most complete atheist you can imagine. I don't believe in Karl
Marx, Jesus Christ or global warming. And I also don't believe in the
unhealthiness of salt, sugar and fat. How skeptical can you get? If
sugar is bad we are all dead

Inorganic Origin of Petroleum: "The theory of Inorganic Origin of
Petroleum (synonyms: abiogenic, abiotic, abyssal, endogenous, juvenile,
mineral, primordial) states that petroleum and natural gas was formed by
non-biological processes deep in the Earth, crust and mantle. This
contradicts the traditional view that the oil would be a "fossil fuel"
produced by remnants of ancient organisms. Oil is a hydrocarbon mixture
in which a major constituent is methane CH4 (a molecule composed of one
carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). Occurrence of methane is
common in Earth's interior and in space. The inorganic
theory contrasts with the ideas that posit exhaustion of oil (Peak Oil),
which assumes that the oil would be formed from biological processes
and thus would occur only in small quantities and sets, tending to
exhaust. Some oil drilling now goes 7 miles down, miles below any fossil
layers

As the Italian chemist Primo Levi reflected in Auschwitz, carbon is ‘the
only element that can bind itself in long stable chains without a great
expense of energy, and for life on Earth (the only one we know so far)
precisely long chains are required. Therefore carbon is the key element
of living substance.’ The chemistry of carbon (2) gives it a unique
versatility, not just in the artificial world, but also, and above all,
in the animal, vegetable and – speak it loud! – human kingdoms.

David Archibald: "The more carbon dioxide we can put into the
atmosphere, the better life on Earth will be for human beings and all
other living things."

WISDOM:

Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough - Michael Crichton

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman

"The desire to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it" -- H L Mencken

'Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action' -- Goethe

“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” -- Voltaire

Lord Salisbury: "No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by
experience of life as that you should never trust experts. If you
believe doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe theologians,
nothing is innocent; if you believe soldiers, nothing is safe."

Calvin Coolidge said, "If you see 10 troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you." He could have been talking about Warmists.

Some advice from long ago for Warmists: "If ifs and ans were pots and pans,there'd be no room for tinkers".
It's a nursery rhyme harking back to Middle English times when "an"
could mean "if". Tinkers were semi-skilled itinerant workers who fixed
holes and handles in pots and pans -- which were valuable household
items for most of our history. Warmists are very big on "ifs", mays",
"might" etc. But all sorts of things "may" happen, including global
cooling

Bertrand Russell knew about consensus: "The fact that an opinion has
been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd;
indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a
widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.”

There goes another beautiful theory about to be murdered by a brutal gang of facts. - Duc de La Rochefoucauld, French writer and moralist (1613-1680)

"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate" -- William of Occam

Was Paracelsus a 16th century libertarian? His motto was: "Alterius non sit qui suus esse potest"
which means "Let no man belong to another who can belong to himself."
He was certainly a rebel in his rejection of authority and his reliance
on observable facts and is as such one of the founders of modern
medicine

"In science, refuting an accepted belief is celebrated as an advance in knowledge; in religion it is condemned as heresy". (Bob Parks, Physics, U of Maryland). No prizes for guessing how global warming skepticism is normally responded to.

"Almost all professors of the arts and sciences are egregiously conceited, and derive their happiness from their conceit" -- Erasmus

"The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to
acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of
duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin." -- Thomas H. Huxley

Time was, people warning the world "Repent - the end is
nigh!" were snickered at as fruitcakes. Now they own the media and run
the schools.

"One of the sources of the Fascist movement is the desire to avoid a too-rational and too-comfortable world" -- George Orwell, 1943 in Can Socialists Be Happy?

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics
are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts -- Bertrand Russell

“Affordable energy in ample quantities is the lifeblood of
the industrial societies and a prerequisite for the economic development
of the others.” -- John P. Holdren, Science Adviser to President Obama. Published in Science 9 February 2001

The closer science looks at the real world processes involved in
climate regulation the more absurd the IPCC's computer driven fairy tale
appears. Instead of blithely modeling climate based on hunches and
suppositions, climate scientists would be better off abandoning their
ivory towers and actually measuring what happens in the real world.' -- Doug L Hoffman

Something no Warmist could take on board: "Knuth once warned a correspondent, "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Prof. Donald Knuth, whom some regard as the world's smartest man

"To be green is to be irrational, misanthropic and morally defective.
They are the barbarians at the gate we have to stand against" -- Rich Kozlovich

ABOUT:

This is one of TWO skeptical blogs that I update daily. During my
research career as a social scientist, I was appalled at how much
writing in my field was scientifically lacking -- and I often said so in
detail in the many academic journal articles I had published in that
field. I eventually gave up social science research, however, because
no data ever seemed to change the views of its practitioners. I hoped
that such obtuseness was confined to the social scientists but now that I
have shifted my attention to health related science and climate
related science, I find the same impermeability to facts and logic.
Hence this blog and my FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC
blog. I may add that I did not come to either health or environmental
research entirely without credentials. I had several academic papers
published in both fields during my social science research career

Update: After 8 years of confronting the frankly childish standard of
reasoning that pervades the medical journals, I have given up. I have
put the blog into hibernation. In extreme cases I may put up here some
of the more egregious examples of medical "wisdom" that I encounter.
Greenies and food freaks seem to be largely coterminous. My regular
bacon & egg breakfasts would certainly offend both -- if only
because of the resultant methane output

Since my academic background is in the social sciences, it is
reasonable to ask what a social scientist is doing talking about global
warming. My view is that my expertise is the most relevant of all. It
seems clear to me from what you will see on this blog that belief in
global warming is very poorly explained by history, chemistry, physics
or statistics.

Warmism is prophecy, not science. Science cannot foretell the future.
Science can make very accurate predictions based on known regularities
in nature (e.g. predicting the orbits of the inner planets) but Warmism
is the exact opposite of that. It predicts a DEPARTURE from the known
regularities of nature. If we go by the regularities of nature, we are
on the brink of an ice age.

And from a philosophy of science viewpoint, far from being "the
science", Warmism is not even an attempt at a factual statement, let
alone being science. It is not a meaningful statement about the world.
Why? Because it is unfalsifiable -- making it a religious, not a
scientific statement. To be a scientific statement, there would have to
be some conceivable event that disproved it -- but there appears to be
none. ANY event is hailed by Warmists as proving their contentions.
Only if Warmists were able to specify some fact or event that would
disprove their theory would it have any claim to being a scientific
statement. So the explanation for Warmist beliefs has to be primarily a
psychological and political one -- which makes it my field

And, after all, Al Gore's academic qualifications are in social science also -- albeit very pissant qualifications.

A "geriatric" revolt: The scientists who reject Warmism tend to
be OLD! Your present blogger is one of those. There are tremendous
pressures to conformity in academe and the generally Leftist orientation
of academe tends to pressure everyone within it to agree to ideas that
suit the Left. And Warmism is certainly one of those ideas. So old
guys are the only ones who can AFFORD to declare the Warmists to be
unclothed. They either have their careers well-established (with
tenure) or have reached financial independence (retirement) and so can
afford to call it like they see it. In general, seniors in society
today are not remotely as helpful to younger people as they once were.
But their opposition to the Warmist hysteria will one day show that
seniors are not completely irrelevant after all. Experience does count
(we have seen many such hysterias in the past and we have a broader
base of knowledge to call on) and our independence is certainly an
enormous strength. Some of us are already dead. (Reid Bryson and John Daly are particularly mourned) and some of us are very senior indeed (e.g. Bill Gray and Vince Gray) but the revolt we have fostered is ever growing so we have not labored in vain.

Jimmy Carter Classic Quote from 1977: "Because we are now running out
of gas and oil, we must prepare quickly for a third change, to strict
conservation and to the use of coal and permanent renewable energy
sources, like solar power.

SOME POINTS TO PONDER:

Climate is just the sum of weather. So if you cannot forecast the
weather a month in advance, you will not be able to forecast the climate
50 years in advance. And official meteorologists such as Britain's Met
Office and Australia's BOM, are very poor forecasters of weather. The
Met office has in fact given up on making seasonal forecasts because
they have so often got such forecasts embarrassingly wrong. Their
global-warming-powered "models" just did not deliver

A strange Green/Left conceit: They seem to think (e.g. here)
that no-one should spend money opposing them and that conservative
donors must not support the election campaigns of Congressmen they
agree with

After three exceptionally cold winters in the Northern hemisphere, the
Warmists are chanting: "Warming causes cold". Even if we give that a
pass for logic, it still inspires the question: "Well, what are we
worried about"? Cold is not going to melt the icecaps is it?"

It's a central (but unproven) assumption of the Warmist "models" that
clouds cause warming. Odd that it seems to cool the temperature down
when clouds appear overhead!

To make out that the essentially trivial warming of the last 150 years
poses some sort of threat, Warmists postulate positive feedbacks that
might cut in to make the warming accelerate in the near future. Amid
their theories about feedbacks, however, they ignore the one feedback
that is no theory: The reaction of plants to CO2. Plants gobble up CO2
and the more CO2 there is the more plants will flourish and hence
gobble up yet more CO2. And the increasing crop yields of recent years
show that plantlife is already flourishing more. The recent rise in CO2
will therefore soon be gobbled up and will no longer be around to
bother anyone. Plants provide a huge NEGATIVE feedback in response to
increases in atmospheric CO2

Every green plant around us is made out of carbon dioxide that the
plant has grabbed out of the atmosphere. That the plant can get its
carbon from such a trace gas is one of the miracles of life. It
admittedly uses the huge power of the sun to accomplish such a vast
filtrative task but the fact that a dumb plant can harness the power of
the sun so effectively is also a wonder. We live on a rather
improbable planet. If a science fiction writer elsewhere in the
universe described a world like ours he might well be ridiculed for
making up such an implausible tale.

Greenies are the sand in the gears of modern civilization -- and they intend to be.

The Greenie message is entirely emotional and devoid of all
logic. They say that polar ice will melt and cause a big sea-level
rise. Yet 91% of the world's glacial ice is in Antarctica, where the
average temperature is around minus 40 degrees Celsius. The melting
point of ice is zero degrees. So for the ice to melt on any scale the
Antarctic temperature would need to rise by around 40 degrees, which
NOBODY is predicting. The median Greenie prediction is about 4 degrees.
So where is the huge sea level rise going to come from? Mars? And
the North polar area is mostly sea ice and melting sea ice does not
raise the sea level at all. Yet Warmists constantly hail any sign of
Arctic melting. That the melting of floating ice does not raise the
water level is known as Archimedes' principle. Archimedes demonstrated
it around 2,500 years ago. That Warmists have not yet caught up with
that must be just about the most inspissated ignorance imaginable. The
whole Warmist scare defies the most basic physics. Yet at the opening
of 2011 we find the following unashamed lying by James Hansen:
"We will lose all the ice in the polar ice cap in a couple of
decades". Sadly, what the Vulgate says in John 1:5 is still only very
partially true: "Lux in tenebris lucet". There is still much darkness in the minds of men.

The repeated refusal of Warmist "scientists" to make their raw
data available to critics is such a breach of scientific protocol that
it amounts to a confession in itself. Note, for instance Phil Jones'
Feb 21, 2005 response to Warwick Hughes' request for his raw climate
data: "We have 25 years or so invested in the work. Why should I make
the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something
wrong with it?" Looking for things that might be wrong with a given
conclusion is of course central to science. But Warmism cannot survive
such scrutiny. So even after "Climategate", the secrecy goes on.

Most Greenie causes are at best distractions from real
environmental concerns (such as land degradation) and are more
motivated by a hatred of people than by any care for the environment

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity
that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence
showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

‘Global warming’ has become the grand political narrative of
the age, replacing Marxism as a dominant force for controlling liberty
and human choices. -- Prof. P. Stott

The modern environmental movement arose out of the wreckage of
the New Left. They call themselves Green because they're too yellow to
admit they're really Reds. So Lenin's birthday was chosen to be the
date of Earth Day. Even a moderate politician like Al Gore has been
clear as to what is needed. In "Earth in the Balance", he wrote that
saving the planet would require a "wrenching transformation of
society".

For centuries there was a scientific consensus which said that
fire was explained by the release of an invisible element called
phlogiston. That theory is universally ridiculed today. Global warming
is the new phlogiston. Though, now that we know how deliberate the
hoax has been, it might be more accurate to call global warming the New Piltdown Man. The Piltdown hoax took 40 years to unwind. I wonder....

Motives: Many people would like to be kind to others so
Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people
want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing
all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the
real motive is generally to promote themselves as wiser and better
than everyone else, truth regardless.

Policies: The only underlying theme that makes sense of all
Greenie policies is hatred of people. Hatred of other people has been a
Greenie theme from way back. In a report titled "The First Global
Revolution" (1991, p. 104) published by the "Club of Rome", a Greenie
panic outfit, we find the following statement: "In searching for a
new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the
threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit
the bill.... All these dangers are caused by human intervention... The
real enemy, then, is humanity itself." See here for many more examples of prominent Greenies saying how much and how furiously they hate you.

The conventional wisdom of the day is often spectacularly wrong.
The most popular and successful opera of all time is undoubtedly
"Carmen" by Georges Bizet. Yet it was much criticized when first
performed and the unfortunate Bizet died believing that it was a flop.
Similarly, when the most iconic piece of 20th century music was first
performed in 1913-- Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" -- half the audience
walked out. Those of us who defy the conventional wisdom about climate
are actually better off than that. Unlike Bizet and Stravinsky in 1913,
we KNOW that we will eventually be vindicated -- because all that
supports Warmism is a crumbling edifice of guesswork ("models").

Al Gore won a political prize for an alleged work of science. That rather speaks for itself, doesn't it?

Jim Hansen and his twin

Getting rich and famous through alarmism: Al Gore is well-known but note
also James Hansen. He has for decades been a senior, presumably
well-paid, employee at NASA. In 2001 he was the recipient of a $250,000 Heinz Award. In 2007 Time magazine designated him a Hero of the Environment. That same year he pocketed one-third of a $1 million Dan David Prize. In 2008, the American Association for the Advancement of Science presented him with its Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award. In 2010 he landed a $100,000 Sophie Prize. He pulled in a total of $1.2 million in 2010. Not bad for a government bureaucrat.

See the original global Warmist in action here: "The icecaps are melting and all world is drowning to wash away the sin"

I am not a global warming skeptic nor am I a global warming
denier. I am a global warming atheist. I don't believe one bit of it.
That the earth's climate changes is undeniable. Only ignoramuses
believe that climate stability is normal. But I see NO evidence to say
that mankind has had anything to do with any of the changes observed --
and much evidence against that claim.

Seeing that we are all made of carbon, the time will come when
people will look back on the carbon phobia of the early 21st century as
too incredible to be believed

Meanwhile, however, let me venture a tentative prophecy.
Prophecies are almost always wrong but here goes: Given the common
hatred of carbon (Warmists) and salt (Food freaks) and given the fact
that we are all made of carbon, salt, water and calcium (with a few
additives), I am going to prophecy that at some time in the future a
hatred of nitrogen will emerge. Why? Because most of the air that we
breathe is nitrogen. We live at the bottom of a nitrogen sea. Logical
to hate nitrogen? NO. But probable: Maybe. The Green/Left is mad
enough. After all, nitrogen is a CHEMICAL -- and we can't have that!

The intellectual Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180)
must have foreseen Global Warmism. He said: "The object in life is not
to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the
ranks of the insane."

The Holy Grail for most scientists is not truth but research
grants. And the global warming scare has produced a huge downpour of
money for research. Any mystery why so many scientists claim some
belief in global warming?

For many people, global warming seems to have taken the place of
"The Jews" -- a convenient but false explanation for any disliked
event. Prof. Brignell has some examples.

Global warming skeptics are real party-poopers. It's so wonderful to believe that you have a mission to save the world.

There is an "ascetic instinct" (or perhaps a "survivalist
instinct") in many people that causes them to delight in going without
material comforts. Monasteries and nunneries were once full of such
people -- with the Byzantine stylites perhaps the most striking example.
Many Greenies (other than Al Gore and his Hollywood pals) have that
instinct too but in the absence of strong orthodox religious
committments they have to convince themselves that the world NEEDS them
to live in an ascetic way. So their personal emotional needs lead them
to press on us all a delusional belief that the planet needs "saving".

The claim that oil is a fossil fuel is another great myth and
folly of the age. They are now finding oil at around seven MILES
beneath the sea bed -- which is incomparably further down than any
known fossil. The abiotic oil theory is not as yet well enough
developed to generate useful predictions but that is also true of fossil
fuel theory

Green/Left denial of the facts explained: "Rejection lies in this,
that when the light came into the world men preferred darkness to light;
preferred it, because their doings were evil. Anyone who acts
shamefully hates the light, will not come into the light, for fear that
his doings will be found out. Whereas the man whose life is true comes
to the light" John 3:19-21 (Knox)

Against the long history of huge temperature variation in the
earth's climate (ice ages etc.), the .6 of one degree average rise
reported by the U.N. "experts" for the entire 20th century (a rise so
small that you would not be able to detect such a difference personally
without instruments) shows, if anything, that the 20th century was a
time of exceptional temperature stability.

Recent NASA figures
tell us that there was NO warming trend in the USA during the 20th
century. If global warming is occurring, how come it forgot the USA?

Warmists say that the revised NASA figures do not matter because
they cover only the USA -- and the rest of the world is warming nicely.
But it is not. There has NEVER been any evidence that the Southern
hemisphere is warming. See here. So the warming pattern sure is looking moth-eaten.

The latest scare is the possible effect of extra CO2 on the
world’s oceans, because more CO2 lowers the pH of seawater. While it is
claimed that this makes the water more acidic, this is misleading. Since
seawater has a pH around 8.1, it will take an awful lot of CO2 it to
even make the water neutral (pH=7), let alone acidic (pH less than 7).

In fact, ocean acidification is a scientific impossibility.
Henry's Law mandates that warming oceans will outgas CO2 to the
atmosphere (as the UN's own documents predict it will), making the
oceans less acid. Also, more CO2 would increase calcification rates. No
comprehensive, reliable measurement of worldwide oceanic acid/base
balance has ever been carried out: therefore, there is no observational
basis for the computer models' guess that acidification of 0.1 pH units
has occurred in recent decades.

The chaos theory people have told us for years that the air
movement from a single butterfly's wing in Brazil can cause an
unforeseen change in our weather here. Now we are told that climate
experts can "model" the input of zillions of such incalculable variables
over periods of decades to accurately forecast global warming 50 years
hence. Give us all a break!

Scientists have politics too -- sometimes extreme politics. Read this: "This
crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism... I
am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils,
namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by
an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In
such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and
are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts
production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to
be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to
every man, woman, and child." -- Albert Einstein

The Lockwood & Froehlich paper
was designed to rebut Durkin's "Great Global Warming Swindle" film.
It is a rather confused paper -- acknowledging yet failing to account
fully for the damping effect of the oceans, for instance -- but it is
nonetheless valuable to climate atheists. The concession from a
Greenie source that fluctuations in the output of the sun have driven
climate change for all but the last 20 years (See the first sentence of
the paper) really is invaluable. And the basic fact presented in the
paper -- that solar output has in general been on the downturn in
recent years -- is also amusing to see. Surely even a crazed Greenie
mind must see that the sun's influence has not stopped and that
reduced solar output will soon start COOLING the earth! Unprecedented
July 2007 cold weather throughout the Southern hemisphere might even
have been the first sign that the cooling is happening. And the fact
that warming plateaued in 1998 is also a good sign that we are moving
into a cooling phase. As is so often the case, the Greenies have got
the danger exactly backwards. See my post of 7.14.07 and very detailed critiques here and here and here for more on the Lockwood paper and its weaknesses.

As the Greenies are now learning, even strong statistical correlations may disappear if a longer time series is used. A remarkable example from Sociology:"The
modern literature on hate crimes began with a remarkable 1933 book by
Arthur Raper titled The Tragedy of Lynching. Raper assembled data on the
number of lynchings each year in the South and on the price of an
acre’s yield of cotton. He calculated the correla­tion coefficient
between the two series at –0.532. In other words, when the economy was
doing well, the number of lynchings was lower.... In 2001, Donald Green,
Laurence McFalls, and Jennifer Smith published a paper that demolished
the alleged connection between economic condi­tions and lynchings in
Raper’s data. Raper had the misfortune of stopping his anal­ysis in
1929. After the Great Depression hit, the price of cotton plummeted and
economic condi­tions deteriorated, yet lynchings continued to fall. The
correlation disappeared altogether when more years of data were added."
So we must be sure to base our conclusions on ALL the data. In the
Greenie case, the correlation between CO2 rise and global temperature
rise stopped in 1998 -- but that could have been foreseen if
measurements taken in the first half of the 20th century had been
considered.

Greenie-approved sources of electricity (windmills and solar
cells) require heavy government subsidies to be competitive with normal
electricity generators so a Dutch word for Greenie power seems graphic
to me: "subsidieslurpers" (subsidy gobblers)

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)

Note: If the link to one of my articles is not working, the
article concerned can generally be viewed by prefixing to the filename
the following: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/42197/20121106-1520/jonjayray.comuv.com/